ArcheAge Healing Overview Guide

ArcheAge Healing Overview Guide by Yoru

The following guide attempts to include everything needed for any player wanting to make their character a ‘Main Healer’ or ‘Primary Healer’ in Archeage. If you wish to create a ‘secondary healer’ or a ‘self sufficient healing character’ you can use things from this guide and apply them to your own build(s) but please understand that this guide is focused on ‘Main Healers’ so please help keep this thread mainly focused on ‘Main Healers’…

From reading & following multiple Healing threads it is clear that there are very deep convictions on wrong/right ways to do things from different folk with different perspectives/experiences. In general as editor of this guide I want to keep this guide applicable to the broader group of Healers (especially new ones). That being said nothing in here is sacrosanct and I am willing to try to incorporate differing opinions and/or schools of though and will break them out as “Conventional Wisdom” and “Un-conventional Wisdom” when needed so please discuss any/all ideas…

What skill sets are required for a character to be a ‘Main Healer’? Quite simply, any character using Vitalism along with Auramancy has the potential to be a ‘Main Healer’.

Healer Stats (In order of importance):

• Healing Power: Main stat affecting your healing and pretty much only available on your primary weapon (when max geared for Healing, 70% or more of your overall healing comes from your main weapon);
• Spirit: Is converted to Healing Power. 1 Spirit = 0.2 Healing Power. Also increases your Healing Critical Rate at a flat conversion of +1% critical heal rate for every 30 spirit (there is no Diminishing Returns on it). For example, with ~740 spirit you can expect an ~24.7% crit rate which is it is really huge as doing a Healing Crit will save a lot of mana & make your life as a healer way easier!
• Stamina: Increases your Health pool & parry rate and you can’t heal if you are dead… Note: One could argue that until you reach a baseline that Stamina trumps all of them as you need a big enough health pool to be able to stay alive…
• Intelligence: Increases your max Mana Points/Pool (MP) and Magical Damage but unfortunately no longer directly affects healing; Of all the key Healer stats this is the stat easiest to supplement via consumables & clickies (Mana Potions/Soup & GHA Scepter).

Important Healer Terminology:

HoT: Heal over Time;

AoE: Area of Effect;

Inspiration/Inspired: The Inspired buff provides the player with an additional 8% attack speed and cast speed for each stack applied. It also has a combo effect with Antithesis, Mend and Fervent Healing to reduce their cool-downs further;

Active Skill: A skill that must be triggered physically by the player to have its effect apply;

Passive Skill: A skill that isn’t triggered physically by the player to have its effect apply;

‘Main Healer’ or ‘Primary Healer’: A role that requires the designated player to provide healing to its party members and him(her)self. Healing is its priority;

Solo Healer: Same role as the Main Healer but is the only source of healing in the party;

Sub/Off Healer: A back-up role that requires the designated player to provide healing to its party members and him(her)self. Compliments the healing of the Main Healer. It provides healing whenever the Main healer failed to do so or when the Main Healer’s healing is not sufficient;

Self Healer: An ability of a character to heal themselves to an extent. It isn’t a role that is relevant for this guide;

Hybrid Healer: A character build that allows them to heal and have another ability. Depending on their focus on healing, they can assume different roles in a party. A Hybrid Healer mostly focused on healing can take any role. A Hybrid Healer with a 50/50 ability can be a Sub/Off Healer. A Hybrid Healer mostly focused on their other ability can be a Self healer but it cannot assume any healing role;

Mana Regen: This is the ability of your character to regenerate mana. Regen only happens when you aren’t casting. Every time you use a skill, it starts a 5 second cool-down after which your mana regen will re-start. Some skills do not block mana regeneration like: normal attack (except bow), Meditation and Ode to Recovery;

Healing Active Skills Overview:

Regeneration: This skill is a healing over time (HoT) instant spell. It will heal the target every sec for a total of 10 secs. It can be cast on yourself or your allies. It will be cast on yourself if you use it while targeting an enemy. Max range 30m;

Antithesis: This skill is a single target heal with a cast time. It can be converted to an instant cast skill while under Conversion Shield. Max range 25m;

Mend: This skill is an area of effect (AoE) healing spell with cast time. It will heal every player including yourself within the radius once. Radius is 20m;

Fervent Healing: This skill is an instant single target healing spell. The spell needs to physically reach the target before it will affect it. It can be cast 5 times consecutively before the cool-down is triggered. Max range 30m;

Healing Passive Skills Overview:

Quick Recovery: This passive resets the cool-downs of all your healing skills if you receive a critical hit or heal. This passive is often triggered when casting Resurgence or Fervent Healing on yourself;

Alms: This passive reduces the cast time for all Vitalism skill by 6%. It is a must when using Mend in your build;

Invigorated Healing: This passive gets triggered when one of your spells does critical healing. It boosts the healing amount of that critical healing by 50%. This passive gets triggered often if you have high healing power which leads to critical healing often;

Defiance: This passive increases the Magical Defense of all allies within 15m;

Joyous Spirit: This passive reduces the cool-down of all Vitalism skills by 20%. It allows a healer to cast 3 instant Antithesis when under the effect of Conversion Shield when paired with 3 stacks of Inspiration;

Hearten: This passive doubles the duration of this Inspiration buff. It allows you to be able to stack those buffs before they expire. You can now stack them up to 3x;

Different Healers (How to choose your healing Class/Build):

Star Rating: ★ = Very little to none, ★★ = Average/ Fair, ★★★ = Excellent, ★★★★ = Outstanding

Note: This Community Guide attempts to cover all the Healing classes in the spirit of continuing Yoru’s “Complete” guide but it should be noted that for many folk the “conventional wisdom” is that the most viable Healer Classes for PVP are the Templar & the Heirophant. In fact in Legion’s great thread he was adamant that Templars & Heirophants were the only real PVP options and likely Templars may be the most forgiving for new Healers…

Note: Current level cap is now level 55 and the level 50 builds have been left for posterity and for people leveling up from 50 to 55.

Tanky Healers:
Pretty much no DPS & you will need to always have team mates and carry a staff around to swap when you need to damage mobs but you will be the most survivable healer (from taking direct hits perspective).

Templar(Vit/Aura/Def)

Lv50 Build PvE – Lv50 Build PvP
Lv55 Build PvE – Lv55 Build PvP
From Legion: Lv50 Build PvP option 1 (more healing and less tanky);
From Legion: Lv50 Build PvP option 2 (more tanky but still a healer);
From Legion: Lv50 Build PvE ‘Self Healing Tank build‘ (this is less focused on healing others);
From Legion: Lv55 Build PvP;
From Legion: Lv55 Build PvE Tank (self healing);

Survivability: ★ ★ ★ ★ [★★★ with greatclub]
Healing: ★ ★ [★★★ with greatclub]
DPS: ★
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★
Easy to play:★★★ (lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★★★

How to Level: The only damaging skills a Templar has is Antithesis and some abilities from the Defense tree that have substantial cool-downs (plus auto-attack). You can use other skills like thwart and Mirror’s Light to debuff enemies. You can try to maximize your physical damage with a ShortSpear or increase magical damage by swapping weapons to a staff or a scepter+shield (weapon swaps trigger a global-cool-down). In the end you will likely want a party to level more efficiently or you’ll need to modify the build to include more damage skills and switch it back when you’re healing;

Legion’s comments on Pros:

• Higher P def and Health compare to other builds
• Anti stun, impale, shackle, silence
• Instant self heal, which regens 2 k hp
• Imunity to dmg for 12 sec, can’t move and cast spells
• High block rate (40 %)
• Got 1 debuff clearing spell

Cons: No crowd control

Crowd Control Healers:
The Crowd Control healer is a great choice for PvE and PvP. You help manage mobs and aggro with all your cc spells and you can cripple enemies in PvP. Barely any DPS so you will need to have team mates and/or carry a staff around to swap in/out when you need to damage mobs.

Hierophant(Vit/Aura/Witch)

Lv50 Build PvE – Lv50 Build PvP
Lv55 Build PvE – Lv55 Build PvP
From Legion: Lv50 Build PvP option 1 – Offensive healer;
From Legion: Lv50 Build PvP option 2 – Supporting healer;
From Legion: Lv55 Build PvP option 1 – Offensive healer;
From Legion: Lv55 Build PvP option 2 – Supporting healer;

Survivability: ★ ★
Healing: ★ ★ ★
DPS: ★
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★★★
Easy to play:★ (lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★★

How to Level: On top of Antithesis, this class has Earthen Grip and Enervate at low levels to damage mobs. It’s really bad DPS unless you equip a staff to damage. Even then it’s not that great so you can look for a team mate or change your build to add more damaging skills and then switch it back when you’re healing.

Legion’s comments on Pros:

• Got 2 debuff clearing spell
• Anti fear, sleep, stun, impale, shackle, silence
• Got plenty of crowd control spells

Legion’s comments on Cons:

• Lower P def (Compare to Templar)
• Lower Health (Compared to Templar)
• Vulnerable to archers and melee, because of low block rate

Healers with effective DPS:
You will be able to do both DPS and main healing without switching weapons and without a team mate. You will be great at PvP and PvE. Very mobile classes.

Oracle(Arch/Vit/Aura)

Lv50 Build PvE and PvP
Lv55 Build PvE – Lv55 Build PvP

Survivability: ★ ★
Healing: ★ ★ ★
DPS: ★ ★★
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★ ★
Easy to play:★★ (lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★

How to Level: Now with this class you get fairly decent ranged DPS! Using Charged Bolt then Precision Shot heavily damages and cripples your enemy. Endless arrow gives you constant DPS. You can also equip a staff and use Antithesis to boost your DPS. Keep spamming Thwart to keep up your inspiration buff and cripple the enemy. You can solo & level no problem with this class.

Argent(Bat/Vit/Aura)

Lv50 Build PvE and PvP
Lv55 Build PvE – Lv55 Build PvP

Survivability: ★
Healing: ★ ★ ★
DPS: ★ ★★
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★
Easy to play:★★★ (lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★★

How to Level: This class has high melee DPS. You should use your battlerage damaging skills to beat your enemy to a pulp. I don’t recommend equipping a staff and using Antithesis because you need your melee weapon (most likely Great-Club or ShortSpear+Shield). Keep up Thwart to cripple your enemy and boost your attack speed! You can solo no problem with this class.

Soothsayer(SP/Vit/Aura)

Lv50 Build PvE – Lv50 Build PvP
Lv55 Build PvE – Lv55 Build PvP

Survivability: ★ ★ ★
Healing: ★ ★ ★
DPS: ★★★
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★ ★
Easy to play:★★ (lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★★

How to Level: This class has a mix of ranged and melee DPS. It is ideal to cripple your enemy with your bow from far away, jump on it with Overwhelm, hit it a few times with melee attacks, get away with teleport, stealth and shoot it with your bow again! As a Soothsayer, you don’t want to stay still for too long! Your damage will be lower than the other more efficient DPS options because your are more of a de-buffer. You can still solo if you play your class well.

Healer with ineffective DPS:
You will need to switch to a staff to do good damage otherwise your DPS will be too weak to kill mobs. Each weapon swap triggers a global cool-down & you much basically chose between healing or DPS as you can’t do both effectively at the same time. Can be used as a leveling build but not recommended for an end game main healer.

Edgewalker(Occ/Vit/Aura)

Lv50 Build
Lv55 Build

Survivability: ★ ★
Healing: ★ ★ ★
DPS: ★
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★
Easy to play:★★ (lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★★

How to level: Edgewalker lost a lot of it’s former glory with the 1.2 patch. You are now obligated to switch to a staff to level and then swap to a healing weapon to heal. To level, use Antithesis, Mana Stars, then, when the enemy is close, use Hell Spear then Summon Crows. The enemy will have taken lots of damage and be poisoned. Then you can use Mana Force to get back some mana and push them back to redo that rotation. Keep up Thwart to cripple your enemy and boost your attack speed! You can solo with this class.

Boneweaver (Sorc/Vit/Aura)

Lv50 Build
Lv55 Build

Survivability: ★
Healing: ★ ★ ★ [★ with staff]
DPS: ★ [★★★★ with staff]
Buffing: ★
Debuffing: ★
Easy to play:★★
(lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★★

How to Level: This class also lost it’s epic-ness with the 1.2 patch. You are now obligated to switch to a staff to level and swap back to a healing weapon to heal. Combo your sorcery skills to chill/burn the enemy. Sorcery dishes out some impressive damage with a staff so you should kill your enemies quick. You can solo with this class.

Buffing Healers:
No DPS. You will always need team mates. Can be mobile depending on your build. Casting heals ends buffs so they will only last 1-4 seconds after you cast a spell. Difficult to do at the same time so most people should focus on either SongCraft or Healing. The Songweaving technique makes both possible at the same time but it’s a technique difficult to use (requires no lag) and extremely mana hungry. Most useful in a team if SongWeaving is used and more discussion on SongWeaving can be found a few paragraphs down in this guide…

Cleric(Vit/Aura/Song)

Lv50 Build PvE and PvP
Lv55 Build PvE and PvP

Survivability: ★
Healing: ★★★★
DPS: ★
Buffing: ★★★ (best in this list but a dedicated SongCraft class like Tomb-Warden can provide more simultaneous buffs consistently)
Debuffing: ★
Easy to play:★
(lag friendly)
Mana Efficiency:★

How to Level: You have your usual Antithesis to damage. You can always add Critical Discord and some other songcraft skills to your build to help damage. A cleric has a lot of difficulty leveling solo. You’ll most likely need a team mate to have efficient leveling.

How to Heal in Normal PvE:

(Note: In all the discussions below it is assumed that Vitalism+Auramancy are required to be an effective Healer…)

I know this seems silly but a lot of thinking and skills come into healing your target. First up, which target to heal/prioritize? Simply, a healer should always heal the tank. Even more so in this game, you really can’t afford to heal the other party members and they should be watching their aggro and using healing pots to self-heal. If your tank isn’t taking damage and you cast a few heals on another teammate, your tank could take critical damage and you won’t have enough mana, even with pots, to successfully heal him/her. If you have a good party, your tank shouldn’t lose aggro anyways so your other team mates will rarely get too damaged. Advise your team mates from the start to drop dps if they get aggro to help the tank. The only other target you should be healing is yourself when you receive some damage.

Now that you know who to heal, when do you heal? Some MMOs are so predictable that healers know to heal only after a % of HP loss. This game is NOT like that. Tanks can easily lose all their HP in a few critical boss hits. During a difficult fight, make sure to always have your tank at full or almost full HP. A good trick is to fake cast. Fake casting is starting to cast a heal that has a longer cast time even if the tank’s hp is full and cancelling it a little before the end if your tank didn’t take any damage. So when not doing anything else you should be casting Antithesis (without conversion shield) on the tank and cancelling it last moment if your tank doesn’t need healing. This will allow you to have, in effect, a near instant antithesis without wasting conversion shield if your tank gets hurt.

Now… how do you heal? Now this is the healing rotations! First up, you should always cast Thwart when it’s off cool-down to keep up inspiration buff stack (to lower your healing cool-downs). You should also always have the Regeneration (HoT) on your tank. After that, you “fake cast” Antithesis (as explained previously) until you actually fully cast it because your tank got damaged. If it’s enough just keep up the previous steps. If your tank is still damaged, use Fervent Healing (up to 5 times) to keep your tank fully healed. If your tank is still taking damage, you should cast conversion shield as soon as your antithesis is off cool-down. If you have a complete skill build and your inspiration stacked to 3, you will be able to cast antithesis up to 3 times before conversion shield runs out. Make sure to keep up the first 2 steps throughout this. This is pretty much your rotation so rinse and reuse!

I’ll finish this section with how to use the healing skill Mend. That skill has a long cast time and a long cool-down. Because of that it’s not a skill you want to have on your regular rotation. It’s a skill to use when a lot of your team is taking damage from AoEs or when you’ve lost your inspiration stacks. Mend has a range of 20m so place yourself at the center of the fight and cast it. Mend can be used well with other skills from the other non-vita/aura skill trees. For example, Shadow Step allows you to teleport right behind your tank to make sure you’re instantly well position to cast Mend. It can also be used to drop the aggro you receive from casting Mend. Teleport and Mirror’s warp are also good skills to use to get out of the middle of the fight after casting Mend or to place yourself quicker to be able to cast it. Protective Wings is also a nice skill to cast after Mend to help out your tank if the enemy is using a lot of magic attacks.

Raid Healing:

Raids is a few parties put together and the player that created it is the leader. With a good attentive healer, parties will be adapted and changed depending on the players available. As a healer it is YOUR responsibility to set your role as a healer to make it easier on the leader.

To set your role in a raid: Right click on your health bar → Set role → Healer

With that, the leader can put healers in different party to ensure healing. Often you’ll find yourself healing your party’s tank because they’re the ones pulling the mobs. After that though, everyone gets the aggro and tanks cannot all pull it back. This is were Mend becomes very useful and this is were clerics shine the most. Remember that in a raid you can heal everyone! If you see someone’s health-bar drop you can easily give them a quick heal. In a raid, everyone needs to be kept alive as much as you can.

PvP Healing:

PvP healing is tricky because it needs to be adapted to the situation you’re in. It’s always a good idea to stay close to the tank if he/she can use Lasso to pull enemies in and imprison them or to pull enemies away from you. All your team mates need healing here so you can’t focus on your tank only. Having AoE heals is a good idea if you have enough mana to back it up. If you need to be more mobile, use teleports to get within range of allies in trouble and throw a few heals on them. PvP healing is were you want to get creative!

What can you do in PvP? Yes it’s mostly healing but, depending on your build, there’s other things to do.

Baiting! As everyone knows, healers are a juicy target for everyone in PvP. If you have a lot of team mates in stealth, if you have a tank able to pull enemies in, if you have Shadow Step and Teleports to get out and hide, then I suggest trying to bait enemies to help get kills for your team.

De-buffing! No matter what type of healer you are, you get some skills that reduce the received healing from your enemy. Mirror’s Light and Thwart do it and they’re always in all healer builds. This helps against a team with a healer or to bring down the healer itself. Depending on your build, you can get even more of those skills!

Do what you do best! A lot of healers have a bonus use. Whether it’s crowd control, debuffing, buffing, damaging, etc, you should help out that way when healing isn’t needed.

Songweaving:

This a a technique exclusive to a cleric. It’s the only way to buff and heal your party all at once. To start this you need to cast a performance song. That song is a party buff. You can recognize a performance song because they are the only SongCraft skills with [Perform] before the skill name. The performance skills buffs the party for 5 secs and is refreshed as long as the player is playing the song for the skill duration. Now, for song weaving, the player will be casting healing spells during the 5 secs of the buff and will recast the song skill to keep the buff going. To do that you need instant healing spells and little to no lag. Here’s an example of how it’s done.

Ex: (Targeting the tank and wanting to heal the tank)
[Perform] Ode to recovery → Regeneration → [Perform] Ode to recovery

(Targeting the tank and wanting to heal yourself)

[Perform] Bulwark Ballad → Conversion Shield → (Hold Alt) + Antithesis → [Perform] Bulwark Ballad

How to chose the Right Armor for your Healer:

Cloth Armor: High Magical Defense & low native Physical Defense (which can be offset with a Stone set or Earth set). Set bonus: Cast time reduced by 4%. Chance to interrupt casting when hit by an enemy is reduced by 50%. Magical damage increased by 5%. The duration of the effects of control reduced by 30%. Recommended for?: ALL Lv 50+ Healing (both PvE AND PVP).

Plate Armor: High Physical Defense and no native Magical Defense. Set bonus: Increases Defense +3% and max health +5%. Also decreases duration of Stun and Shackle -20%. Recommended for?: Not really recommended for Healers for neither PvP nor PvE (unless you are a Templar in PvE Tank mode). While Plate does have some reduction to Physical (Archery/Melee) damage similar Physical mitigation can be found on some Cloth Armors (in particular Stone sets) and cloth has superior Magical Damage mitigation and cloth typically has stats & bonuses better aligned for Healers.

Leather Armor: Medium Physical Defense and Medium Magical Defense. Set bonus: Increases Attack Speed and Evasion +3%, bow skill range +3m, and Melee/Ranged Citical Rates +5%. Also decreases duration of Trip -20%. Recommended for?: Neither PvE nor PVP at cap. Only really used for leveling as an Oracle, Argent or Soothsayer…

For your level 50 PVP armor as a Healer, the “Conventional Wisdom” is investing time in crafting or buying a Stone Cloth set (as cloth is considered by most folk to be the best at end game for main healers). Stone is actually a version of a crafted set like flame, wave, earth, etc. Ideally you want to get a stone version of the level 50 cloth set of ideally Magnificent or higher level if can afford it (examples: Magnificent Stone Shirt, Epherium Stone Shirt, Delphinad Stone Shirt, etc…).

General recommendations on Items (parts from Legion):

• -Life Lute;
• -Cloak which gives +5 % block rate;
• -Wave Earrings (reduces received dmg by %);
• -Halcyonas Necklace for Warriors proof (reduces received dmg by %);
• -Earth Rings (gives extra mdef);
• -Healer Armor Set: Stone Cloth Set: Spirit/Stamina (increases pdef and reduces incoming dmg by %);
• -Templar PvE Tank Set: Earth Plate Set – Stamina (increases pdef/mdef);

The following Gems (Lunagems) and Enchants (Lunastones / Lunafrosts) are recommended for Healers by slot (note that you if you want to be able to apply the highest level gems/enchants you should go with Magnificent or higher armor):

Head:
Gem : Defense
Enchant : Rare Flawless Insightful Lunafrost (2% cast time)

Shirt:
Gem : Resilience
Enchant : -3% received damage (the one you buy with honor)

Sash:
Gem : Defense
Enchant : a +5/+2 stam/spirit or reverse, or a +7 stam or spirit one

Sleeves:
Gem : Defense
Enchant : a +5/+2 stam/spirit or reverse, or a +7 stam or spirit one

Gloves:
Gem : Grand Vivid Earth Lunagem: Finesse
Enchant : a +5/+2 stam/spirit or reverse, or a +7 stam or spirit one | Comments: I chose the finesse lunagem on my gloves because evade and parry lunagem have the same value, and you can evade from behind but not parry, so you should get more use/benefit from evade (unless maybe you are a Templar that gets procs from parry(s).

Legs:
Gem : Toughness
Enchant : a +5/+2 stam/spirit or reverse, or a +7 stam or spirit one

Boots:
Gem : Your choice there, Grand Vivid Earth Lunagem: Celerity (for move speed) or Defense
Enchant : Rare Flawless Assassin´s Lunafrost

How to chose the Right Weapons for your Healer:

Templar weapon options:

• – 1H Life/Obsidian Club + Earth/Obsidian Shield | Bonus: [Wielding a shield increases Physical Defense and Magic Defense +200, and Max HP and Max MP +350.] | Comments: Standard choice for Templars. Offers good healing and defense;
• – 1H Obsidian Shortspear + Earth/Obsidian Shield | Bonus: [Wielding a shield increases Physical Defense and Magic Defense +200, and Max HP and Max MP +350.] | Comments: Offers similar healing and defense as the previous option but also offers a bit more damage for melee attacks. Not really recommended for ‘Main Healers’ and best suited for Templars in ‘Self-Healing-Tank’ mode.
• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla or Life) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest healing. Isn’t recommended for Templar’s main healing weapon but can be used if they lack a 1H options that offers sufficient healing or if they don’t have aggro and think their tank/party can keep aggro;

Hierophant weapon options:

• – 1h Life/Obsidian Club + Earth/Obsidian Shield | Bonus: [Wielding a shield increases Physical Defense and Magic Defense +200, and Max HP and Max MP +350.] | Comments: Offers less healing than the previous option but offers more defense and is considered more balanced for PVP;
• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla/Life/Obsidian) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest healing;

Oracle weapon options:

• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla/Life/Obsidian) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest healing;
• – 1h Obsidian ShortSpear + Gale or Mist Dagger | Bonus: [Increases Attack Speed +10% when equipped with [two] one-handed weapon[s] + Increases damage for Triple Slash, Whirlwind Slash, Rapid Strike, Overwhelm, Wallop, and Shadowsmite +7%.] | Comments: Offers less healing than the previous option but offers more melee and archery damage. Not recommended for characters focused on healing.

Argent weapon options:

• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla or Life) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest healing;
• – 1h Obsidian ShortSpear + Gale or Mist Dagger | Bonus: [Increases Attack Speed +10% when equipped with [two] one-handed weapon[s]. Increases damage for Triple Slash, Whirlwind Slash, Rapid Strike, Overwhelm, Wallop, and Shadowsmite +7%.] | Comments: Offers a bit less healing than the previous option but offers more DPS;

Soothsayer weapon options:

• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla or Life) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest healing;
• – 1h Obsidian ShortSpear + Dagger | Bonus: [Increases Attack Speed +10% when equipped with [two] one-handed weapon[s]. Increases damage for Triple Slash, Whirlwind Slash, Rapid Strike, Overwhelm, Wallop, and Shadowsmite +7%.] | Comments: Offers a bit less healing than the previous option but offers more DPS;

Edgewalker & Boneweaver weapon options:

• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla/Obsidian/Life) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest healing but no magic damage;
• – Life, Meadow or Wave 2h Staff | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments: Offers the highest magic damage but little to no healing. Recommended only to level. Not recommended for healing;

Cleric weapon:

• – 1h Life/Obsidian Club + Earth/Obsidian Shield | Bonus: [Wielding a shield increases Physical Defense and Magic Defense +200, and Max HP and Max MP +350.] | Comments: Offers good healing and defense and, though may not get as much mileage from this as Templars, more balanced for PVP;
• – 2h Greatclub (Hasla/Obsidian/Life) | Bonus: [Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Melee/Magic skill damage and heal amount +5%.] | Comments Offers the highest healing for PVE though less survivable in PVP;

All classes

Bow
Gale: Oracle
Flame: Argent, Soothsayer
Wave: Edgewalker, Boneweaver, Cleric, Templar, Hierophant
Obsidian: All

Flute
– Obsidian: All

Regarding Gems (Lunagems) and Enchants (Lunastones / Lunafrosts) on Weapons, the following are the recommended options for Healers:

Club:
Enchant : the 20 healing for 1h, the 30 healing for 2h (roughly 2% heal increase on 1h and 3% on 2h)
Gem : Grand Vivid Fire Lunagem: Salvation

Shield:
Enchant : Choice between: 20 healing OR Rare Flawless Willful Lunafrost (270defense) OR Grand Whole Barrier Lunafrost (2% block rate) OR the -10 to all received dmg from PvP
Gem : Grand Vivid Earth Lunagem: Impenetrable

Bow:
Enchant : nothing good for us there you can put the 2% range skill dmg from PvP honor points
Gem : Grand Vivid Fire Lunagem: Salvation OR Grand Vivid Gale Lunagem: Torrent

Instrument:
Enchant : nothing good for us there
Gem : Grand Vivid Fire Lunagem: Salvation OR Grand Vivid Gale Lunagem: Torrent

Where to get your gear?

Questing while leveling now lets you pick a healing weapon as a reward so for a long time you should be fine with them. You can rely on quest rewards and instance drops to upgrade throughout your leveling. To determine where things drop Instance-wise you can use this spreadsheet link which was compiled on Reddit by arkezxa with other people’s help & input. The quest line armor is fine for leveling until 50 so don’t feel pressured to have to do instances to get gear to level as you will just disenchant it or sell it anyway when you get to 50.

For a great guide on how to get your “level 50 Starter Gear” I would click on this link. That guide is a great overview but does leave out some key information that would be helpful for new players and that missing information can be found here. What is missing from both of those guides is the recommendation to ‘OVERACHIVE’ all of the “Starter Gear” quests that you can as it results in better starter gear (overachieving on 3 different characters has resulted in 1 Unique, 11 Heroic, & 9 Arcane armor items via in-game testing).

For a good Healer starter weapon, if there is nothing equivalent that is cheaper on the Auction House, at level 35 you can buy the honor weapons (Honor’s Withering Club) (Honorable Withering Club) at the [Weapon Merchant] for 100g and 140g each respectively. At least the level 35 1H Club Healer Honor weapon can be upgraded to a level 50 version with 5 Blood Archeum Crystals (BAC are 40g a piece at the general merchant for a total additional amount of 200g added to the previous 100g for lv 35 weapons) you can use the recipe to craft the lv50 Healing 1H Club (Honor’s Mighty Withering Club).

At level 50 you can also craft a Hasla Healer weapon but unfortunately for Healers only a 2H Great-Club is available from Halsa.

You can also buy your gear from the auction house or craft your gear but be forewarned that gear crafting is very random and considered one of the biggest ‘gold sinks’ in the game…

PvE Dungeons Guides & Boss fights from a Healer Perspective/Point-of-View (PoV):

– GHA 5 man (guide NOT Healer PoV): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCQro_n1RlA
– GHA 5 man (guide NOT Healer PoV): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0kx5j65qRw
– GHA 5 man (Healer PoV): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9yeLJ7QKHs
– GHA 5 man (Healer PoV): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qa3l9vYc18
– All Serpentis fights (Healer PoV): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…erFYlHXbUB8f18
– Dahuta 10man (Healer PoV): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-WrXjYkvKA

Power Leveling and How to Rank Tailoring Fast! :

This is a tip that most players know but since it’s very helpful to healers that pick cloth armor I’ll leave it here.

The Sleeves Trick: To rank your tailoring very fast and with few materials, craft the first (Apprentice Ocean’s) sleeves over and over. To craft 1 sleeve, you need 1 moonlight archeum dust, 1 fabric and 3 blue salt wedges. If you deconstruct the sleeve(s) (using an evenstone), you are guaranteed to get one moonlight archeum dust back. Which means that to train your tailoring all the way to the top you’d one need 1 moonlight archeum dust instead of thousands of them. You still need to get the cotton (fabrics) and buy the wedges at the general shop but those are very easy/quick/cheap to obtain. This trick was mainly used (along with a Vocation Tonic) by level 50’s to gain 11k exp per sleeve to train other skill-trees. It can also help out players that use an easier build to level and want to switch to another skill tree to heal at end game. For more info on this technique and how to maximize it from a Power Leveling perspective I would click on this link.

Leveling with a DPS Spec:

One pain point for Healers is that, due to the lack of DPS, it can be a pain to level unless you are in a static group that has good DPS that levels together or if you are good/efficient at forming Pick-Up-Groups (PUGs). For those that don’t or can’t easily group, in addition to power leveling, one option is to level with a DPS spec. Some of the above discussion already rates some healer classes on their ability to put out DPS and this link is a good discussion on leveling with a DPS spec and when to swap in/out healing skill sets. If you are having trouble leveling in a given area you may want to visit this Complete Archeage Leveling Guide.

Healers and Mana issues:

The simple fact is that in Archeage as a Healer you will have mana issues. Overall ArcheAge is a PVP based game so much of this guide is focused on PVP. As a Healer in PVP you will be a main target by the enemy and thus this guide has a lot of focus on survivability for Healers. One of the recommendations for Healers in PVP is to go with a Stone Cloth armor set which will further exacerbate mana issues. With all of this in mind all Healers should stock up on mana food and both types of mana potions (as they have separate cool-downs). If you want to make your own mana potions this link is a good discussion on how to do it. That discussion also highlights that there are 2 distinct cool-downs for Mana Potions as newer players may not realize that they can leverage 2 types of Mana Potions simultaneously.

Thank you for your interest in and contributions to this guide and have a great time on Archeage as a healer!