Can You Solo PVE Content as a Healer in ESO?
The short answer is – absolutely! With the right build, gear, and skill, healers can tackle most solo PVE content in ESO including questing, delves, public dungeons, and normal dungeons. Veteran DLC dungeons and trials will provide an exceptional challenge, but seasoned healers can even complete that content with practice.
Healers give up some raw damage for tremendous survivability and self-healing power. By combining these strengths with damage shields, snares, and damage-over-time effects, soloing healers can achieve great things!
Below we‘ll cover tips, class comparisons, benchmarks, gear, consumables, and content viability recommendations so you can see all that‘s possible for solo healers. Let‘s get started!
Successful Solo Healing Tips
Here are key tips and concepts for effective solo healing in ESO:
Use a Secondary Destruction Staff
Having a destruction staff on your second weapon bar provides strong single target and AOE damage abilities. Force Pulse, Elemental Weapon, Wall of Elements are great options.
Prioritize Spell Damage & Healing Power
When choosing gear and champion points, optimize for high spell damage and healing power rather than max magicka. Around 20-25k max magicka is sufficient.
Layer Strong Damage Shields
Hardened Ward, Harness Magicka, Annulment – these shields are essential defensive layers so incoming damage doesn‘t outpace your healing capability.
Manage Resources Intelligently
Heavy attack with your destruction staff to restore magicka. Use potions to refill stats. Careful ability use is key.
Combine Damage & Healing Over Time
Applying DOTs like Elemental Drain, Orb of Decay, Wall of Elements lets you deal damage while self-healing.
Crowd Control is Vital
Talents like Encase, Gripping Fragments, Elemental Blockage allow you to control mobs which is critical when solo.
Make Good Use of Pets
Sorcerers, Wardens, Necromancers have strong pets that draw aggro and provide support dps/heals.
Solo Healing Class Comparison
Here is how each class ranks in terms of solo healing potential:
| Class | Rating | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Templar | S Tier | Strongest class heals Great sustain | Low damage potential |
| Warden | A+ Tier | Solid heals Frost spells for defense | Pet management requred |
| Necromancer | A Tier | Summonable healer Damage shields | No burst healing |
| Nightblade | B+ Tier | Strong self-healing | Squishy without heals |
| Dragonknight | B Tier | Damage shields Crowd control | No burst healing |
| Sorcerer | B- Tier | Summoned pets Ward spells | No burst healing |
As shown above, Templars and Wardens have the easiest time soloing with their extremely powerful healing capabilities. But other classes can definitely still get the job done!
Expected Solo Healing Benchmarks
To complete most vet solo content like DLC dungeons, here are ideal benchmarks:
- 25k+ Single Target DPS
- 10k+ Self Healing per second
- 50k+ Damage Shields
- 65% Damage Mitigation
Achieving these numbers requires properly-traited gear, offensive/defensive champion points, and some practice! But this provides healers goals to work towards.
Recommended Gear & Consumables
Optimizing your setup is key to success. Here are top recommendations:
Gear Sets
- Spell Power Cure
- Warrior-Poet
- Bright-Throat‘s Boast
- Wizard‘s Riposte
- Innate Axiom
Glyphs & Traits
- Spell Damage or Healing on jewelry
- Infused on big armor pieces
- Defending on small armor pieces
Consumables
- Spell Power Potions
- Health & Magicka Food
Having two full 5-piece sets plus a Monster helm offers big boosts to healing power and spell resistance. Defending traits reduce your damage taken substantially. Infused traits amplify your shield and heal effectiveness. It all combines to make you incredibly hard to take down!
Viable Solo Content
Here is a breakdown of recommended solo content by difficulty for well-built healers:
| Content | Difficulty | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Normal Questing | Very Easy | Mindless with no issues |
| Delves | Easy | Good warmups! |
| Public Dungeons | Moderate | Watch out for bosses |
| Normal Dungeons | Moderate | Mechanics good practice |
| Normal Trials | Hard | Requires experience |
| Vet DLC Dungeons | Very Hard | For seasoned veterans |
| Vet Trial Hard Modes | Extremely Hard | The true endgame test |
As shown above, both questing and delves pose little threat to solo healers. Public dungeons and normal dungeons start increasing the challenge requiring more skill in your damage abilities and survivability. Normal trials also test group mechanics comprehension.
Finally, veteran DLC dungeons and especially veteran trial hard modes push solo healing to its absolute limits! Few can achieve victory in this content without hundreds of hours of practice. But for those elite healers seeking the hardest challenges…it‘s possible!
Final Thoughts
While solo healing takes finesse, dedication, and mastery of your abilities, remarkable achievements are possible if you commit to the playstyle! With the right build, smart ability use, and top-tier gear, you too can join the ranks of legendary healers conquering content solo that people claimed was impossible.
The tips, benchmarks, and recommendations provided above should give all aspiring solo healers guidelines to start their journey. As you gain experience and confidence, don‘t be afraid to experiment further customizing your setup. The path won‘t be easy, but triumph tastes all the sweeter when earned through hardship. Soon no content will be beyond your ability to solo heal!
