Tactician, Raid support/healing guide (and some leveling)

[Mirimon]

Tactician
A Raid Healing and Support Guide

The build: 61 Tactician, 15 Bard

Here we go with 15 points in bard for the +% to healing AND the + to HP that comes with it (more hp= more absorb with a certain ability). The important things to grab in Bard are 5/5 in Good Health and 5/5 in Street Smart, the rest you can place as you deem fit with options for increased dps (never a bad thing), increased self healing (not liking that one soo much) and such. Not much point in enhancing bard buffs/cadence or getting Anthem of Glory. As other classes will be using this.. and the Raid Bard running 61 points will have this if really needed.

Macro:
Almost pointless, but there are perhaps a couple of uses

Beam/Bolt
#show Necrotic Bolt
suppressmacrofailures
Cast Infernal Beam
Cast Necrotic bolt

^When using this, tap x2 then go about your business when doing dps, you do not need to stand there and watch them, they will do their thing.. This macro is also handy for dps, as when the target is <30% hp Necrotic bolt has no cd, so it becomes cheap, spammed ILOSAOE (in line of sight area of effect). Which brings me to a current issue with Tactician.

I also prep the target with

#show curative remote
Cast curative remote
Cast Curative Beam

Used once will place a spore–like debuff, healing people any time the target gets hit (there are some internal cd’s on how often it procs), a second tap will enact the healing beam, which like other beams/torrent, effects anything, up to 10 people, between you and the target within the effective and finite width.


Tactician has a compliment of “Torrents” and such, that all currently act more like laser beams.. and for the moment.. have issues with targets that are at different elevations from the caster. The other major issue is that they effect a very narrow beam of aoe.. (4m atm, so that’s 2m to either side on center, I am asking for 6m, which is the width of any melee “aoe/swipe”) so in order to maximize.. you need to try keeping your furthest most target locked in and position so that most of the other mobs are between you and it, as you can imagine this may lead to deaths in raid boss mechanics as well as make any cores you drop ineffective for the raid, a solution would be that Trion hopefully expands the width of the “Beams” and Torrents.. Girth is good right? Another interesting aspect of Torrents, is that they do not require a target. What ever direction you face is where they go, so.. if need be, you can initiate several heals from a primary target in front of you, healing the melee, and then spin 180 or w/e and toss a curative torrent in the direction of the ranged (same goes for dps, especially with infernal torrent since it puts up dots).
Now.. for healing abilities.

Theoretically.. you will be facing the melee group.. and possibly focusing heals on them due to the LoS nature of Tactician. In this way.. you will spend most of the time spamming Curative Torrents, up to 4 times.. now, as the torrent is active it uses energy, something to think about if for some reason you are starved. Initially, as dmg should not be extreme just yet, you may want to start with 4 cast curative torrent, /stopcast macros in a row, alternatively, you can weave beams in there and on the 4th torrent an Empyrian Bolt to instantly accrue full cp. This will then be used for Torrent Primer, which will drop the Torrent overload AND buff the effectiveness of your Torrents. As of the current SL build.. Torrents are superior to all other tactician dps or heal abilities.. so, attempting to get 5cp and use a “Ray” at all in the rotation to pick up another 30s buff ends up being a over all dps and HPS loss. Hopefully we will get this fixed before launch to make it less mindless and incorporate more tactician abilities. ATM, empyrean bolt with the aoe healing engine on will heal for far less than 15 point bard cadence (invig soul)., so don’t even bother, use it only to build that 5cp for primer)

Drop appropriate cores/remotes when off cd, and others when in 4 part raid wide buffing rotation (as spoken of in the Bard guide and the thread on raid buffing) between the torrent spam rotation.

The gear you may have had specifically for healing or buffing the raid previously from Barding (musical tides/SHOES, buffing/healing essences) ALL work 100% with tactician heals, so go ahead and put those back on.

Cores/remotes: alsways use them
Torrents: better for stand still effect, some strafing, not good for kiting (walking backwards while using the healing torrent will cause it to not heal yourself)
DPS= glacial>Infernal>Glacial>Infernal (Necrotic at <30%), Healing= Spam healing torrent x4.
Rays: useful only when kiting when combined with appropriate buff.
Beams: used to preload dots, and when off cd for rotations, also used for kiting aoe dps(as they have no facing requirement to maintain function.
Primer: used to buff torrent and remove overload.


Bit off point
Tactician leveling:

Now.. nearly every soul is capable of leveling well from 50+ with 8 or so points in Tactician spent, as it offers self healing engine (heals you when you get hit.. often) and self healing core along with a handy aoe dps core, great for grinding down massive packs of mobs, also handy when subbed with Tanking for maintaining aoe threat or planting down in specific areas to pull mobs when you aren’t there anymore.

A Build I favor for Tactician leveling, is 48 Tact (focused mostly on the DPS aspects when built, and ~18 MM.

You are wanting to go deep enough in MM to get sniper training, which buffs all tactician channeling/cast time abilities like steroids. Added effects are massive + to AP and bonus 5m range, bringing us to 35m total. This build offers great mobility, enhanced range, superior dps numbers and all while maintaining respectable group/self healing. Hours of chaining 7-8 elite mobs 5 -6 levels higher ( or 20+ normal mobs) with no risk to self, by far best build as of Beta 2. Tag multiple targets ranged via bolts and kite with beams, then drop core and spam torrent when grouped. Necrotic Bolt when specced can become spammable after the target reaches <30% (even though it says bolt, this is a ray effect, doing aoe dmg to anything between you and target, MASSIVE AOE. Beams are great for kiting, and for putting up dots before and between torrent rotations.

Note: there is a particular buff, that decreases dmg/healing from certain abilities.. but makes your “Rays” instant cast, hand to have about when mob grinding for leveling as you kite.

it should be noted.. that weapon enhancements to take effect with tactician abilities.. so if you have spare points, go ahead, or even chosing 0 point assassin for that single poison is handy, as is sab for sticky bomb help when kiting (honestly though.. kiting only for pulling more mobs, not really needed, been able to go toe to toe with everything out there so far, if you start getting hurt alot, a single Healing Torrent will do more than enough healing for yourself.) but it's really up to you from here.


Subject to change.. as final SL build is not yet released, and because these games always change at some point in time.

gogo gadget flamethrower!

[Galibier]

Here is a question, which do you see as the better generic "raid healer." This or the Bard/tact. I am putting up what I consider scary Raid heal numbers on Live as a bard. I am asking because I know more than a few rogues who rolled to "pew pew" not to do other things but they will fill a slot, grugingly, with A non-dps spec. Just wondering which way to direct them in the heal regard.

[Mirimon]

I would have to parse this extensively, in ways that current dummies cannot show me, while almost all of bard heals effect only 5 people at a time, they do great numbers. yet the Tact exlusively does 10 person healing, with only 1 ability healing 5 people. ATM I would venture that Tact will do more in both the heal and dps department, but with much less buffs involved, while Bard will still be buff focused. I would essentially need friendly dummies who remain at 50% stacked no more than 4m wide, or a raid to go stand in silly stuff while I parse them.. was hard in SL as most raids were not taking enough dmg to count well.

We will see in a couple days though on beta eh?

[Durango]

Here is a question, which do you see as the better generic "raid healer." This or the Bard/tact. I am putting up what I consider scary Raid heal numbers on Live as a bard. I am asking because I know more than a few rogues who rolled to "pew pew" not to do other things but they will fill a slot, grugingly, with A non-dps spec. Just wondering which way to direct them in the heal regard.

properly played/spec'd Tact will significantly out heal bard.

[Galibier]

The thing that gets me with Tact though Durango is that it is not just about me. I am a pretty decent player but with how the channel heals operate I can be the best player ever in an MMO and if everyone else is all over the place and/or you have limited melee on a mob it matters not a fig.

I personally am going to have both. Tanking is something I have not liked (miss my Berzerker from EQ2) so I will have my BD, MM, Sabo, Solo, Tac/raid heal and Bard specs though.

[Mirimon]

tact can be tricky for healing, if the raid is indeed all over the place. the group needs to understand that tact works well on stacked stuff.. not soo much when spread out.

Thankfully, our healing cores can help mitigate that, with their ~25m range of effectiveness, and though torrents heal better than using bolt spam and curative blast, the bolt spam and blast may have to be used if the raid is in a spread mechanic. That is where they separate, Bard and Tact.. if a fight is always spread out a Bard, even though it's primarily 5 people at a time being effected, will constantly heal as long as they are within LoS/distance

imo.. on spread out fights you will see bard advance for healing, on stack mechanics tact will pwn.

And if I have not mentioned.. Tact sub goes WELL with tanking, +mitigation, +resist,+healing,+to self healing, and more aoe abilities (always good for a tank). Tact for me was one of the best sub souls for almost all leveling builds and end game raiding heals/tank builds.

[Mirimon]

I kinda wish trion would put a group of 20 dummies at 50% for rogue healing.. would make testing this soo much easier to see which truly heals more in raid, tact or bard (I have a feeling it would be tact, with higher numbers and 10 person oriented healing vs. 5 person healing. But directional, and as such, heavily dependant on perfect alignment in fights

[Mirimon]

update from beta 3

BR does effect only the rogue, and nobody else, with aoe shielding deeper in the roots.

trying to put together the raid healing vs bard.

[Mirimon]

self healing got tuned a bit, not soo OP as last patch, but still very effective. only thing I can post for healing vs bard would be plausible numbers, since getting people together to grind out a good test isnt gonna happen atm.. lite players and beta trolls clogging up the server.

[Vera]

Having had the benefit of actually testing tactician in a raid environment at level 60, allow me to help you out.

It's a lot of healing. Probably shouldn't give numbers, but it was significantly higher than Bard.

I don't know what spec he was using, but it was at least 51 points.

For the purposes of healing, 61 Tactician is a bad spec. What you gain from 51+ isn't all that useful.

51 Tactician / 25 Bard would give significantly increased healing, especially from Triumphant Spirit. Although you lose .25% a level from taking Bard over Tactician, that only amounts to 2.5%. 5 Points in Triumphant Spirit and you gain 20% back.

[Mirimon]

Having had the benefit of actually testing tactician in a raid environment at level 60, allow me to help you out.

It's a lot of healing. Probably shouldn't give numbers, but it was significantly higher than Bard.

I don't know what spec he was using, but it was at least 51 points.

For the purposes of healing, 61 Tactician is a bad spec. What you gain from 51+ isn't all that useful.

51 Tactician / 25 Bard would give significantly increased healing, especially from Triumphant Spirit. Although you lose .25% a level from taking Bard over Tactician, that only amounts to 2.5%. 5 Points in Triumphant Spirit and you gain 20% back.

er.. Curative BEAM., fortification core, restorative bolt, ablative coil???

Let me help YOU out.. since I have raided as a 60 in sl content both as Bard and Tact. (whereas it wasn't you doing the testing, but somebody else, which you cared not to look at the numbers.. don't really know this person's spec, so on and so forth...

while, like my Burn Bard, I can force tactician to do Much more healing than in a 61 point build, we are overlooking the handy tools that are the main mission of tact-SUPPORT, not exactly via stat buffing like bard.. and with less abilities that really have such an effect, the priority remains the same, tact will not, now or ever top dps charts, or hps charts, and should be mindfull instead of maintaining the proper cores needed by the raid while rotating the 2-min cd's which do things like mitigate 30% dmg of the raid as long as they are near you... a handy tool, and based on the fights I may or may not have been able to test and cannot confirm or deny whether or not I may speak of them.. the timed mitigation will be needed.

furthermore... whith a goal of ae healing.. why would you not get curative BEAM.. which effects it's abilities while performing others? (it's an active LoS aoe HoT). no.. while anybody can grind out better healing from it (this huge nerf to us on ae healing is significant) via speccing into more ap or + to healing, it's manditory goal of dropping the right cores/remotes and properly timed cd's will be the win or lose portion of the soul in it's role as support.

while I hate being a buffbot as much as the next guy.. no matter what they do, buffing/nerfing to the ground of our heals, the bard must also remember it's priorities to the raid groups' benefit. Rather than boosting it's potential hps or even dps for a few points, or for even 1k.. the team as a whole will benefit much more from having the highest possible stats it can get in almost all of the other areas.

in this Bard and tactician are alike.. where we may have to forego the needs of the one for that of the many.

Not speccing to provide for the raid is pure negligence on behalf of that player alone, and only when we have grown out of that content, and can afford to run things with less care, would you ever go to a pure hps/dps spec.. and that is likely to be no time soon.

save us all the time and energy, support your raid, not yourself.

[Vera]

er.. Curative BEAM., fortification core, restorative bolt, ablative coil???

None of those abilities are any good. Fortification Core isn't bad, but I'd question whether it's worth losing healing for, should your goal be to heal.

And last time I checked, you get Curative Beam at level 51, which means 51 / 25 would have curative beam.

[Mirimon]

None of those abilities are any good. Fortification Core isn't bad, but I'd question whether it's worth losing healing for, should your goal be to heal.

And last time I checked, you get Curative Beam at level 51, which means 51 / 25 would have curative beam.

Ablative coil... Used in several raid fights coming up..


And.. the goal is not healing.. it is raid support with healing ability as a secondary benefit. ( being that it has more value than support dps.)

[Elvirnith]

I've been testing tact/bard/rs throughout the open beta and with the lvl 60 pots that came out tonight boosted myself up to 61 tact / 15 bard / 0 RS and it's an absolutely amazing combo. You're setup for support, but you can dish out a ton of DPS (I parsed over 11k with just the flamethrowers against 3 training dummies and push 8k - 10k easily in group fights).

The heals are actually extremely good both for soloing and group fights - with this build, even while leveling from 50 (I went from 50 - 51 with 51 tact / 15 bard / 0 RS) it's quite viable - just grab 3 - 5 enemies and go to town. You can heal through just about anything they can dish out and you'll be doing very respectable DPS with little to no downtime thanks to all the heals.

The combo with MM in it is more DPS, but less surviveability in my testing and in the end I much preferred bard over MM as I was able to take on more mobs and fight for longer periods of time.

[Mayi]

If you're going to use 61 tact then I'd suggest 61tact-10sab-5nb instead of 15 bard.

The healing on torrents is the same as 15 bard but the dps is higher. Increased fire power also doesn't proc off heals. Usually the dex buff in sab isn't as good as ap boosts, but with tactician crits help a lot with energy.