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Tips for Healing Word?

bigglefroo6bigglefroo6 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 41
edited May 2013 in The Temple
Hi guys, I have been looking around for a couple of days now for any tips or tricks as to how you may go about effectively targetting the correct player while using Healing Word.

As I'm sure a lot of you know, when the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> hits the fan in a boss fight, it is almost impossible to pick out the player you are meaning to with Healing Word.

Are we to just assume this is a spell reserved for small PvP battles or does anyone have some solid advice other than "Learn to play" :)?

Looking forward to hearing feedback!

P.S. I'm aware that healing is perfectly viable without HW, but as I am low level, I am not privy to some of the nicer higher up abilities.
Post edited by bigglefroo6 on

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    faethor70faethor70 Member Posts: 32 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    You have some abilities that work with your "temporary hit points" that makes it scale the longer it ticks. If you throw 2 heals on one guy they stack for crazy heals. ANother perk is each "tic" has a chance to crit. So when its stacked, and criting that guy will make a nice recovery. The bad is now you have just given yourself all that aggro. =(
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    realr3sistancerealr3sistance Member Posts: 191 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    I believe you can use /target and /bind to set-up custom targeting but /target isn't as nice as say "party member 1" or "party member 2". It requires the player name as far as I am aware and so that means having to remake your targets for EVERY party :(.

    As it goes healing word isn't really that good in the end, damage mitigation abilities like Astral Shield are vastly more important and Astral Shield in Divine Mode is an AoE HoT where players just need to stand in a circle that you place where you want. Forgemaster's Flame again from Divine Mode heals for more and then your 3rd encounter needs to be used for building divinity/action points. Naturally at lower levels you pretty much have to use healing word but it's pretty redundant at later levels unfortunately.
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    oronessoroness Member Posts: 378 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    The best tip youll get: Don't use HW.

    At lower levels ASeal and SBurst are plenty to heal a party. I topped the Damage dealt, damage taken and Healing done charts a bunch of times before lv 30. Get used to top the most damage taken and most healing done since lv 30, it seems that's what the class is about ;)
    Then at lv 30 you get FF, so use that to heavily heal. Your heals will be strong, but you need to build divine power so you better start to learn to get the most DP in the least time possible.
    At lv 50 you get AS, and it becomes your main heal. It gets harder and harder to survive in dungeons and healing others will stop being your main concern as they won't even take 1/10 of the damage you take.

    Skip bastion of health too. It has horrible cooldown , slow cast time and and the heal is mediocre.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    I want this class in NW. :o
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    shultzillashultzilla Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 104 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    HW is a fantastic skill. Combined with Divinity, it just makes the skill that much better. Divinity HW > Chains > Daunting Light, kite during CD, rinse and repeat. It allows you solo classes in early PvP, and hold points until help arrives.

    OP: I try to reposition to target other players. There's nothing you can do if everyone overlaps though
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    laudon1laudon1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    healing word is a garbage spell. It is easily healed 2-3x over by forgemaster's flame.
    Lemonade Stand.
    Dragon Guild
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    HW is horribly underestimated IMO.

    It's better than Prophecy as a pure AP generator, great for dumping excess divinity into more AP. I have ridiculous uptime on dailies with it. And I don't have to worry about targeting specific mobs or missing the animation, etc.

    And it works nicely with Ethereal Boon in that it not only gets it's divinity "cashback" bonus basically instantly after use, but also works even with divinity mode HW so it gives a divinity refund.

    It heals for a little more than half of forgemaster for me, per second, but I have 100% uptime on it, and I'm even using that divine advantage feat that everyone hates. FF is a fantastic aoe burst heal for sure, but I don't really need burst all that much, both situational IMO.
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    oronessoroness Member Posts: 378 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    If you want to build DP and AP use sunburst. Faster, Easier and it has pushback in DM.
    HW is a waste of slot. There are so much better spells to slot rather than HW and that would do the job much better...
    for PVP? sure, but for PvE? lol just plainly skip it.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    I want this class in NW. :o
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    oroness wrote: »
    If you want to build DP and AP use sunburst. Faster, Easier and it has pushback in DM.
    HW is a waste of slot. There are so much better spells to slot rather than HW and that would do the job much better...
    for PVP? sure, but for PvE? lol just plainly skip it.

    I use both.. That's how I get AP so fast.

    I prefer to just spam AP when I don't need so much massive healing, and HW does that the best, as opposed to FF.

    Even then it has the bonus of also healing, so yeah.. Very undersestimated.
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    oronessoroness Member Posts: 378 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    So you're deffinitely wasting an encounter slot =/
    You can reach ~100% uptime on HG with just SBurst, you don't actually need HW.

    Just sayin, one or another, but both seems like overkill to me, or at least for the build i'm running.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    I want this class in NW. :o
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    oroness wrote: »
    So you're deffinitely wasting an encounter slot =/
    You can reach ~100% uptime on HG with just SBurst, you don't actually need HW.

    Just sayin, one or another, but both seems like overkill to me, or at least for the build i'm running.

    Perhaps, like I said it's situational for me, not saying I run Healing Words 100% of the time. But I'm also not as well geared yet.
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    deistikdeistik Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 658 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    I only run HW in fight where I know I'll be kiting the whole fight. Otherwise, Sunburst/FF out performs it 10 fold in healing/AP gain.
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    deistik wrote: »
    I only run HW in fight where I know I'll be kiting the whole fight. Otherwise, Sunburst/FF out performs it 10 fold in healing/AP gain.

    How exactly does FF out perform HW in ap? Oo
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    teemoorteemoor Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 82
    edited May 2013
    You spelled the name wrong. It's Kiting Word. Situational encounter, at high levels mostly used for kiting adds on some bosses.
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    weeatdimsumweeatdimsum Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    In terms of building AP, you gotta think a little bit more efficiently than just individual skill generation values. DC generate way too much aggro so use it to your advantage. Sunburst does just that. If things are too close, divine mode + sunburst and things get knocked away allowing you to get ahead. If not, it will still generate about ~1/3 of your AP bar. Even if things are manageable sunburst in a crowd of mobs is still going to generate a good chunk of AP; just make sure you hit multiple targets.

    To expand on what deistik is trying to say, I think, FF heals for alot more and is an area heal centered on the target. As long as your party members can hold even 1 mob's attention, they will benefit from it far more than HW alone. HOWEVER, if you're being forced to kite over a large area, then HW will definitely bring you out ahead since you can run and cast it. Just keep in mind that it is single target and that you'll need to have precise targeting to pull it off consistently.
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    weeatdimsumweeatdimsum Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    i wish i could delete posts.. it posted in this topic for a different topic gg
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    griennegrienne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 149 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    knoteskad wrote: »
    How exactly does FF out perform HW in ap? Oo

    The / means "or". FF definitely out does HW in terms of healing.

    My DC has two forms; the "double cleric zzzz form" & the "solo heal oh **** run ***** run form"

    Dbl Cleric
    I get to have fun more so here because of the double shields (I know they may nerf it, but I hope they do a congruent change to dungeon mechanics as well, but I digress) In those cases I use Sunburst (AP/Heals/Proc Invig Heals); Searing Light for ****s and giggles really lol its just fun to use, and AS of course. My at wills, LoF and BotS. My build has the tier 2 skill in righteous path (right name?) that generates DP upon encounter cd.

    Sunburst does gains me more than half my AP bar per hit and I have a 8s CD on it so...gg

    Solo Heals

    This one is virtually the same swapping out the Searing light and the at will skills. SL becomes Chains/FF/DL. I often use Holy Fervor and Soothe, primarily because I find that extra healing is just unnecessary and with SB I generate enough DP and AP even when kiting.
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    realr3sistancerealr3sistance Member Posts: 191 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    knoteskad wrote: »
    And it works nicely with Ethereal Boon in that it not only gets it's divinity "cashback" bonus basically instantly after use, but also works even with divinity mode HW so it gives a divinity refund.

    Actually Healing Word gets a worse bonus from Ethereal Boon than Forgemaster's Flame, the only way it'd be useful is that you can use it out of battle but more often than not that means your party is being slow and standing still/etc. the reason being that Forgemaster's Flame has a 14 second cool down and Healing Word gets a 15 second cool down which is the only thing that really matters for Ethereal Boon, that being how often you can use an ability and if you are constantly fighting it's easier to use Forgemaster's Flame more often than Healing Word, healing word thus as I said only benefits more if you aren't in battle...
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    nw000nw000 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 11 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I think it depends on your playstyle, I've seen good clerics using HW and others not using it. It's a matter of preference imo. I just use it in some fights.
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    supamoesupamoe Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Just use Healing Word for PvP , Since its easier to target your teammates because there's not 100 ADDs. Don't ever use it in PvE , Astral shield is good enough
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Actually Healing Word gets a worse bonus from Ethereal Boon than Forgemaster's Flame, the only way it'd be useful is that you can use it out of battle but more often than not that means your party is being slow and standing still/etc. the reason being that Forgemaster's Flame has a 14 second cool down and Healing Word gets a 15 second cool down which is the only thing that really matters for Ethereal Boon, that being how often you can use an ability and if you are constantly fighting it's easier to use Forgemaster's Flame more often than Healing Word, healing word thus as I said only benefits more if you aren't in battle...

    Yes Healing Word only gives an EB proc every 15 seconds, but it also gives it upfront because it's "cooldown" starts when you cast (the 1 seconds cooldown) a charge refreshing isn't the cooldown and doesn't proc EB.

    But that's not what I was talking about, the bonus is that Divinity HW is a "free charge" and also has a 3 second cooldown that procs EB. So you essentially get a discount/refund on Divinity HW's.
    grienne wrote: »
    The / means "or". FF definitely out does HW in terms of healing.

    My DC has two forms; the "double cleric zzzz form" & the "solo heal oh **** run ***** run form"

    Dbl Cleric
    I get to have fun more so here because of the double shields (I know they may nerf it, but I hope they do a congruent change to dungeon mechanics as well, but I digress) In those cases I use Sunburst (AP/Heals/Proc Invig Heals); Searing Light for ****s and giggles really lol its just fun to use, and AS of course. My at wills, LoF and BotS. My build has the tier 2 skill in righteous path (right name?) that generates DP upon encounter cd.

    Sunburst does gains me more than half my AP bar per hit and I have a 8s CD on it so...gg

    Solo Heals

    This one is virtually the same swapping out the Searing light and the at will skills. SL becomes Chains/FF/DL. I often use Holy Fervor and Soothe, primarily because I find that extra healing is just unnecessary and with SB I generate enough DP and AP even when kiting.

    I figured he meant : Sunburst/FF set up, vs Sunburst/HW set up. Not Sunburst or FF. Oo

    In which case I asked how FF gives better ap than HW.
    In terms of building AP, you gotta think a little bit more efficiently than just individual skill generation values. DC generate way too much aggro so use it to your advantage. Sunburst does just that. If things are too close, divine mode + sunburst and things get knocked away allowing you to get ahead. If not, it will still generate about ~1/3 of your AP bar. Even if things are manageable sunburst in a crowd of mobs is still going to generate a good chunk of AP; just make sure you hit multiple targets.

    To expand on what deistik is trying to say, I think, FF heals for alot more and is an area heal centered on the target. As long as your party members can hold even 1 mob's attention, they will benefit from it far more than HW alone. HOWEVER, if you're being forced to kite over a large area, then HW will definitely bring you out ahead since you can run and cast it. Just keep in mind that it is single target and that you'll need to have precise targeting to pull it off consistently.

    I do tank, I went with a tanking build because of that and I do use sunburst, that's not at all what I was talking about.

    And I know FF is a massive heal and aoe. I know HW is situational I already said that. All I'm saying is people downplay the skill too much.

    Had a good place for it tonight when I did Mad Dragon, while tanking the billions of adds, the rogue was soloing the dragon, and I was able to keep HW on him to keep him topped while he was far away and dodging all over the place, but has the benefit of keeping extra HPS rolling on me permanently to help with tanking, as well as the extra massive AP gains from divinity dumping.

    It works brilliantly with Sunburst as sunburst is essentially a great divinity generator since you rarely use it in divinity mode, and all I have is Astral Shield to spend divinity on, so I have this excess divinity I can dump into HW not only for extra healing (which is overkill a lot of the times), but also to gain AP even faster. So it's like Prophecy in that regard of turning divinity into AP but w/o all the hassle, and an added benefit of being a useful heal.
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    griennegrienne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 149 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    I figured he meant : Sunburst/FF set up, vs Sunburst/HW set up. Not Sunburst or FF. Oo

    In which case I asked how FF gives better ap than HW.

    ---totally fair.

    Does anyone really use anything other than SB for AP generation? I mean every 16 seconds I have a full or near full AP bar and by near full I mean 1-2 at will attacks away, from SB alone.
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    grienne wrote: »
    I figured he meant : Sunburst/FF set up, vs Sunburst/HW set up. Not Sunburst or FF. Oo

    In which case I asked how FF gives better ap than HW.

    ---totally fair.

    Does anyone really use anything other than SB for AP generation? I mean every 16 seconds I have a full or near full AP bar and by near full I mean 1-2 at will attacks away, from SB alone.

    Well thinking in terms of the future, if you get to the point of AP overkill think of how you can start to utilize 2 dailies at a time lol.

    Or lets say you get to the point where you can get 100% HG without Sunburst and replace it with something else for even more healing or damage output? Like if divine glow ever got fixed and you could exponentially increase your teams dmg w/o giving up much.

    I'd hate to ditch it just because the situational knockback is stupidly useful atm.
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    oronessoroness Member Posts: 378 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Then ditch HW. Simple.
    I'm not even full t2 (not even full t1 as greaves are nearly extinct or smth) and I've never felt the "****! If only I had slotted HW..."
    Most of the times my feeling is "****, I should have slotted DG or DL instead of FF" because the group doesn't need any other form of healing, only AS and SB are enough most of the times and i need to get rid of adds on my own.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    I want this class in NW. :o
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    laserdanlaserdan Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Only fight I ever use HW in is frozen heart T2, final boss. All other fights are FF, or divine glow if additional heal isn't necessary.
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    griennegrienne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 149 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    knoteskad wrote: »
    Well thinking in terms of the future, if you get to the point of AP overkill think of how you can start to utilize 2 dailies at a time lol.

    Or lets say you get to the point where you can get 100% HG without Sunburst and replace it with something else for even more healing or damage output? Like if divine glow ever got fixed and you could exponentially increase your teams dmg w/o giving up much.

    I'd hate to ditch it just because the situational knockback is stupidly useful atm.

    Except I already keep HG up 100% of the time for most fights, I usually slot in DG/DL instead, I like using DG a lot as well because of the amazing DP generation from it.
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    runningman121runningman121 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I've been using HW for a while now, Level 60 and have done almost all of the T2s. HW is a great skill, the regen it gives is nice for yourself and your teammates. I spam it pretty much every time it's off of cooldown. FMF is a good ability but it doesn't last long enough and requires people to be within short distance of the targeted mob, which can be hard to achieve in many cases. HW doesn't heal for as much but I find that with the proper gear it holds up better than FMF. Just spam it on group members and build AP, DP and keep a HoT on yourself and them, when hit with big burst damage, it's a nice instant heal too when cast from divine mode, heals for 2500 or so usually, with around 5k crits which are quite often for me with 45% crit chance. It's also very effective at grabbing adds off of tanks during boss fights like Dracolich where you're not close to the tank and they can't stay close enough to the boss to keep getting healed by FMF. It's all preference, but from my experience it's well worth keeping on your action bar. I'm currently running Sunburst, HW, and AS. I always top healing charts with 4-5mil + depending on dungeon. And around 2-3mil+ with 2x Cleric groups. Sunburst, HW, and AS are the bread and butter of a strong Cleric for T2s, HW is interchangeable based on the situation and group setup of course though.
    laudon1 wrote: »
    healing word is a garbage spell. It is easily healed 2-3x over by forgemaster's flame.
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    knoteskadknoteskad Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I've been using HW for a while now, Level 60 and have done almost all of the T2s. HW is a great skill, the regen it gives is nice for yourself and your teammates. I spam it pretty much every time it's off of cooldown. FMF is a good ability but it doesn't last long enough and requires people to be within short distance of the targeted mob, which can be hard to achieve in many cases. HW doesn't heal for as much but I find that with the proper gear it holds up better than FMF. Just spam it on group members and build AP, DP and keep a HoT on yourself and them, when hit with big burst damage, it's a nice instant heal too when cast from divine mode, heals for 2500 or so usually, with around 5k crits which are quite often for me with 45% crit chance. It's also very effective at grabbing adds off of tanks during boss fights like Dracolich where you're not close to the tank and they can't stay close enough to the boss to keep getting healed by FMF. It's all preference, but from my experience it's well worth keeping on your action bar. I'm currently running Sunburst, HW, and AS. I always top healing charts with 4-5mil + depending on dungeon. And around 2-3mil+ with 2x Cleric groups. Sunburst, HW, and AS are the bread and butter of a strong Cleric for T2s, HW is interchangeable based on the situation and group setup of course though.

    Yeah, that's another thing I sort of prefer, the constant HPS from HW as opposed to the burst healing from FF, it tends to be overkill most of the time for me, since I'm mainly just having to tank a non stop stream of DPS.

    Look at how effective the HP/Regen tank build is, this basically does that.
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    llfritzllllfritzll Member Posts: 215 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    If they fixed aggro so clerics didn't always end at the top of the damage taken list you would probably see less people saying HW is a good spell. I mean the spell has its uses, mostly for solo and lower level play, but realistically in a dungeon group fighting a boss with 20 adds and everyone running all over the place and then actually targeting the correct player you want to heal is a matter of getting lucky most the time. The reason clerics like the spell is because they are constantly taking too much damage and need the self heal.
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    realr3sistancerealr3sistance Member Posts: 191 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    knoteskad wrote: »
    Yes Healing Word only gives an EB proc every 15 seconds, but it also gives it upfront because it's "cooldown" starts when you cast (the 1 seconds cooldown) a charge refreshing isn't the cooldown and doesn't proc EB.

    But that's not what I was talking about, the bonus is that Divinity HW is a "free charge" and also has a 3 second cooldown that procs EB. So you essentially get a discount/refund on Divinity HW's.

    That's not a free charge, that isn't even close. That's a full Divinity Charge (or 90% if you are counting a 5/5 Ethereal boon) which really is against the point which is Ethereal boon not AP gain. As it goes Forgemaster's flame will also get that 10% Divinity back the only difference is the time and I'd still argue that a Divine Forgemaster's is worth way more than a Healing Word cast or even 2 healing word casts using divinity to save one.

    As far as AP goes, Sunburst generates such a stupid amount of AP there really isn't that much need for anything else to be generating it. I can already get to the point where I have a 50% uptime on Hallowed Ground while soloing...
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