User:Soldier198/Guide to Restoration Magic Healing

Soldier198's Big Bad Guide to Restoration Magic Healing (PvE)

What is Restoration Magic?

Restoration Magic is a Ritualist attribute line with heavy emphasis on healing and support. It is one of only two attribute lines in the game generally considered to be a "healer" line, the other being Healing Prayers. Restoration Magic is an all-inclusive source of healing, containing general necessities such as spot heals, party heals, and condition removal. Because of its versatility, Restoration Magic is suitable for a wide range of encounters.

Healing and Cleansing

Feast of Souls combines well with a dying Rejuvenation.

While there are a variety of ways to play as a Restoration Magic healer, there are two skills that should almost always be considered absolute staples on any Restorers bar; Spirit Light and Mend Body and Soul. These skills are the backbone of any Restorers healing abilities. Spirit Light is simply the strongest direct healing spell the Ritualist has access to, with a cheap energy cost, powerful heal, quick recharge, and an easy to fulfill condition in PvE. Mend Body and Soul is a good source of secondary healing that is also arguably the best source of condition cleansing in PvE. The popularity of spirit spammers in PvE, in addition to the ease of creating and controlling spirits, generally means that Mend Body and Soul is the sole source of condition removal you will need for the vast majority of PvE encounters. These two skills are your bread and butter.

Spirit Light and Mend Body and Soul are good on their own, but they shouldn't be your only sources of direct healing. When playing in Hard Mode, there are often times when a teammate may take a quick spike of damage. Spirit Transfer is a reliable and reusable spike healing ability. It is definitely a skill worthy of your attention, and is quite clutch when saving a near death ally. If utilizing an item, Soothing Memories should certainly be taken as it returns 3 energy while having a decent amount of healing and a quick recharge. If utilizing weapon spells, Wielder's Boon is an effective source of healing.

On the topic of weapon spells, Spirit Light Weapon is a powerful and highly energy efficient heal over time that can be maintained on multiple allies. However, effective usage of Spirit Light Weapon requires a few criteria being met. Because the skill grants additional healing when in earshot of a spirit, it is best used on caster or ranged teammates and not on melee attackers, for they are more likely to stray outside its range. Additionally, when playing in hard mode the direct damage potential of enemies increases greatly while degeneration and damage over time abilities see a lesser increase, and in some cases none at all. This places more value on direct heals and spike healing abilities that counter the increase in damage. As a heal over time, Spirit Light Weapon by itself is not effective against large packets of damage. But, when used in combination with dependable means of protection, such as a Soul Twisting ally or an Imbagon paragon, that can reduce these large damage packets into more manageable amounts, Spirit Light Weapon then becomes a reliable skill to counter constant streams of damage on any ally.

Spirit Light Weapon heals for a large amount of health over time and can be maintained on multiple allies.

Playing as a Restorer requires you to use spirits in order to operate fully. This is because the majority of your healing skills are in some way conditional, with most requiring a spirit within earshot in order to achieve, or in some cases avoid, their conditional effects. Life is an easily accessible spirit that fulfills this condition. It's relatively inexpensive (for a Binding Ritual), recharges quickly, and has a powerful end effect that activates even if it dies early. Because of this, it should also be considered a staple in the majority of cases. That said, the other Binding Rituals in Restoration Magic are well worth considering. Recuperation affects all allies, and while +3 health regeneration isn't a whole lot, it can be quite valuable in a party stacked with minions and summons. Rejuvenation is a cheaper choice and makes great fodder for skills like Feast of Souls. Recovery in combination with Mend Body and Soul makes conditions even more fragile, verging on the point of irrelevance.

When it comes to party healing, there are variety of options for a Restorer to take. The aforementioned Binding Rituals are on their own good sources of party healing, but they have a disadvantage in that they are not on demand sources of party healing. Protective Was Kaolai is a popular item spell that heals the party for quite a bit and has a fast activation time. In addition, it can be held and double dropped. However, holding an item spell has drawbacks as you cannot use your weapons when doing so, so think carefully as to whether or not the current situation would be better served by holding an item or by using your weapon sets. With skillful usage and strategic placing of Binding Rituals, Feast of Souls can perform remarkably well. If you do decide to use Feast of Souls, be careful not to place your spirits near other allies' spirits. Additionally, position yourself in close proximity to the spirits you intend to detonate for the duration of the conflict, if possible.

Energy Management

The Ritualist has access to a wealth of energy management options. As mentioned earlier, the Restoration Magic line is all-inclusive and by itself can entirely fulfill your healing needs. Because of this, you have full access to a secondary attribute line of your choosing in order to achieve your energy management goals.

Spirit Transfer is an effective spike heal.

In general, the best sources of energy management for a Restorer are going to be elite skills. Within the Spawning Power line, you can gain access to two extremely potent energy management skills, Spirit Channeling and Attuned Was Songkai. Spirit Channeling returns very high amounts of energy, with a net gain of 35 energy when using a 20% enchantment mod at 15 spawning power. Because Spirit Channeling requires only a spirit within earshot to perform optimally, it is easy to fit onto many bars. Attuned Was Songkai, as an item spell, requires you to forgo your weapons in order to use it, but at 15 spawning power it reduces the cost of all your spells and binding rituals by 50%. However, Attuned Was Songkai will need a way to reduce its cooldown for it to be maintainable. Serpent's Quickness is an easy and dependable way to achieve this result, with the added bonus of reducing the cooldown of your other skills.

In terms of non-elite skills, Boon of Creation and Signet of Creation are effective when utilizing multiple spirits. Within the Channeling Magic attribute line, you gain access to Spirit Siphon, which is possibly the most powerful non-elite source of energy management available to the Ritualist, albeit reliant on spirits and most effective when using more than one. That said, Offering of Spirit is also worth considering, especially if used in conjunction with Spirit Siphon. These skills have an advantage over Spirit Channeling and Boon of Creation by not being enchantments, and so cannot be stripped in areas with heavy amounts of enchantment removal.

Attuned Was Songkai allows one to avoid the downsides of enchantments while retaining great energy management capabilities.

Binding Rituals

As mentioned prior, spirits are essential to playing as a Restorer. However, there are some important tips to go over to ensure you get the most out of your Binding Rituals.

Positioning

Your Binding Rituals are defensive in nature. They either heal allies, heal party members, or reduce the duration of conditions. They need to survive in order continue their operations. Defensive spirits should not be positioned aggressively and should be treated as if they were backliners. But you as the restorer also need at least one spirit within earshot for you to heal your teammates. Therefore, in any encounter there is a balance between placing spirits distant enough to avoid attackers, but also close enough so that you can support your team.

Here we can see some important highlights regarding spirit positioning. 1. A Spirit of Life is positioned away from the frontline. 2. A player is positioned near the Spirit of Life for utilizing Spirit Transfer and Feast of Souls. 3. A Soul Twisting Hero is flagged away from combat, yet still within earshot range of an opponent (the ST Hero must remain within aggro range of an enemy, otherwise they will not independently use Binding Rituals).

Area Coverage

Requiring a spirit within earshot at all times limits the amount of physical area from which you are able to heal. In teams with multiple Ritualists, this isn't as much of a problem as there are usually enough spirits around to cover a wide area. However, should you be the sole Ritualist in the team, it would be wise to consider bringing more than one spirit that way you can A. Increase the area from which you can heal allies B. Have an additional spirit available in case one dies or is disrupted C. Have an additional spirit available in case your team is defeating mobs quickly and your spirits are left behind. The last thing you want as a Restorer is to find yourself in a situation where you are unable to utilize your healing skills when they are needed most.

Example Bars