Welcome to my guide to healing as an Oathbound Paladin, AKA the Healadin!
It’s worth noting you should probably not pursue this build while leveling to 70, unless you have DPS class friends to party with, for leveling builds I recommend using MrBandits’ “The Inspiration” Build, I used that build myself for leveling and it does wonders!
Now, with this build for healing you will not be doing much damage at all, the purpose of this build is to keep the entire party healthy while giving valuable buffs to nearby allies.
Let’s get started with building the Healadin;
Race
First and foremost, any race can be good for whatever you want to do, the racial bonuses are, in my opinion, almost unnoticeable in most cases. Go with what you think looks good. However! for the sake of the build the top 3 classes I would recommend will be listed.
- Metallic Ancestry Dragonborn [+2 to any two Ability Scores; +3% Power and Critical Strike; +3% healing from spells and abilities; +3% Health Points] This is one of the better options, if not the best. +2 to any ability score is amazing, the 3% to power and crit strike again very nice for healing, 3% incoming heals is nice for you as your heals are less effective on yourself and the extra 3% Health helps a lot in Mod 6. If you get lucky to nab this Race then I would suggest using it!
- Dragonborn [+2 to any two Ability Scores; +3% Power and Critical Strike; You receive 5% more healing from all spells and abilities] same deal as the metallic except trading the 3% health for 5% more healing on yourself, still very useful.
- Human [+2 to any two Ability Scores; 3% increased Defence; +3 extra feat points] Biggest downside to Human is you lose an extra 2 Ability points. the 3% defense is pretty unnoticeable, however the extra 3 feat points can come in handy.
Ability Score
For healing you want as much Constitution and Wisdom as you can muster. This is what my Ability scores look like (without Artifact belt) at level 70. I go all out on Con. and Wis. for more health, Damage Resist, and healing, Crit chance.
Powers
This is my Powers Tree, most of the skills are just fillers. Below I will explain which ones I use the most in the Load Outs section.
Feats
Feats are important and can make or break, for the paladin there are lots of great Feats so deciding what to go with can get frustrating sometimes. This is my Feat tree:
Heroic Feats
these are fairly self-explanatory.
Toughness – +3% Max Hit points per rank
Weapon Mastery – +1% crit chance per rank
Divine Action – Activating Divine Call generates 1% max AP per rank. I only put one point in here in favor of Dominating Presence.
Exemplar’s Haste – Encounters recharge 2% faster per rank.
Dominating Presence – Auras have a 2 foot increased radius per rank. that extra 10 feet can come in handy in some cases. I may respec this later.
Steadfast – Each point of con gives an additional .5% max hit points per rank.
Divine Wisdom – Each point of Wis increases healing by an additional 0.33/0.66/1%.
Light – Paragon Feats
The only two I did not take are Gifts of Light and Light Touched. GoL is nice but I find myself always gettings hit by one thing or another so I went with Seraphim. LT is fairly useless as you really don’t use any healings “spells”. You’re mostly using Cure Wounds to heal.
Seraphim – When you take damage you have a chance to gain “Seraphim” for 8 seconds. Seraphim increases your healing by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Restorative Haste – You gain 2/4/6/8/10% more recovery from equipment. I may respec this later but for now I like the effect, more recovery, faster AP and faster encounters.
Share the Light – Allies you heal receive 3/6/9/12/15% more healing from you for 4 seconds. With Bonds of Virtue, you are ALWAYS healing EVERYONE, so this is pretty much a permanent 15% bonus healing.
Aura Gifts – Allies within 30′ of you gain 5/10/15/20/25% of your Power. They must remain within 30′ of you for at least 6 seconds to gain this buff. Amazing buff, the 30′ range is kinda hindering but if you can stay that close to your DPS, that’s a lot more damage for them.
Healer’s Touch – You heal for up to 10/20/30/40/50% more depending on how close to the target you are. This feat only works when healing allies. Great feat to have even if you are far away it’s still a healing boost.
Echoing Heal – Healing an ally places Echoing heal on them. After 2 seconds it heals them for 40/80/120/160/200% of your weapon damage before jumping to a new nearby damaged ally. If there are no damaged allies nearby this heal does not jump. Can only jump a maximum of 3 times. You gain a charge of this feat every 10 seconds while in combat. Pretty useful light heal, more so with Bonds of Virtue as it will just heal everyone that’s bonded.
Holy Bonds – Your Recovery is increased by 4/8/12/16/20% for each ally within 30′. Maximum 5 allies. Same reason as Restorative Haste.
Deific Intervention – If you are downed all nearby allies are fully healed and are granted maximum damage resistance for 4 seconds. Can only trigger once every 300/270/240/210/180 seconds. Great feat to have in those instances where you go down. gives the party 4 seconds to get you on your feet and healing again.
Redemption – Every 10 seconds in combat you gain “Redemption”. Activating your Divine Call will consume Redemption and cause you to pulse out a heal every second for 3 seconds. This heal restores 500% of your weapon damage divided equally among damaged allies within 100′! You can have a maximum of 3 stacks of Redemption. This is amazing for those times when someone is just out of range to Cure Wounds and Bonds of Virtue (Very rare but it happens) or for multiple large hits against the party, works amazingly with Bonds of Virtue on.
Load out
Now is the time for the fun part: Putting together a working Load out for battle!
This can be the most time consuming task, as you have to do a bit of trial and error. I have gone through about 3 retrain tokens figuring out my build and am still looking into what may work better.
Dungeons Load out
In dungeons I would recommend using these At-Wills/Encounters/Class Feats. :
At-Wills
Oath Strike – Deal some decent damage while healing everyone near the target on the third hit –
Cure Wounds – This at will is a MUST HAVE, this build will not work effectively without it! Amazing healing, the Attack speed is 1/sec, even with only a few Alliance pieces I heal from 10k to even 90k crits!
Class Features
Aura of Wisdom – Must have, gives a base 10% increased recharge speed to all allies within 30 Feet, each additional point increases it by 5%, for a max of 25%!
Aura of Divinity – Heals up to 3 wounded allies within 30 Feet every 3 seconds, each rank increases heal by 10%
OR
Aura of Courage – You and allies within 30 Feet deal 1% of YOUR max Hitpoints as radiant damage. Each rank increases that damage by 10%. This is can really add up to a lot of added DPS.
Encounters
Bonds of Virtue – MUST HAVE, this encounter is what makes the entire build possible! – All allies within 60! Feet become bonded. Allies who are bonded gain 20% increases healing from ALL sources. Additionally any time you heal a bonded ally, all bonded allies receive 15%! of that healing – That is HUGE! Each rank increases Healing AND Shared healing by 5% for a max of 35% increased healing and 30% Shared healing, this encounter is amazing!
I am still experimenting with the other two encounters for the load out, trying to figure out what works best in general situations, as I dislike having to swap out for boss fights.
Cleansing Touch – Heal target ally and remove any CC from them. You may activate this power even while being Controlled. Oath of Devotion Bonus: Always effects allies in a 15 foot radius around the target. I have healed around 90k to 250k crits with this ability, the casting time is about 2 seconds so not really ideal for quick heals. Still a nice skill to have. Each rank increases healing by 15%
Bane – Place a mark on a Target, Target deals 10% less damage and takes 10% more damage. Can stack 3 times and lasts 10 seconds. Oath of Devotion Bonus: Can now be placed on allies giving them 10% increases damage and 10% Damage Resist. Each rank increases duration by 2 Seconds
Banishment – Banish all targets in an AoE for 20 seconds. These foes are stunned and become invulnerable until the stun ends. Oath of Devotion Bonus: Allies in the affected area gain 20% increased damage resist for 20 seconds. The stun length seems to depend on the “rank” of the enemy, and the effected area looks to be below 20′ for enemies and around 30′ for allies. I am still testing this Encounter out. Will update on how well it performs.
Vow of Enmity – Mark a target for 60 Seconds. only one target can be marked. You deal 20% more damage to that target. Oath of Devotion bonus: Allies who strike this target are healed. Each rank increases your damage dealt to target by 10%
Circle of Power – Generate a 30 foot zone. You deal 30% more damage while inside this zone, the zone lasts for 20 seconds. Oath of Devotion Bonus: you gain 30% more healing. Each rank increases duration by 4 seconds. This can be really helpful if you need that extra healing.
Those are the most common Encounters I use inside Dungeons. If anyone has suggestions or have found other Encounters useful then please by all means mention them.
Equipment
Right now I am focusing on Alliance Restoration with Ward neck/rings and a wisdom artifact belt.
So far I am enjoying my Healadin very much, I don’t encounter too many problems aside from the occasional eye brow raise when people realize I am a healer. I will update this guide as time goes on and as I discover new load outs and receive comments and suggestions. As well as small changes or additions I would like to add personally.
Thanks for reading this guide and hope it helps. Stay awesome Healadins!