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.
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