Disciple of Khaine

So I am Path of Torture (damaging) DoK atm. A friend told me that it is stupid to have a combat healer, and not to spec in healing (he's an imba Warrior Priest healer on another server). He says that he can fight two players (not mobs, players) without much problems...which I don't think I could say for myself.

Also, even before he mentioned that, I had the feeling that damaging DoK-s aren't very needed around...that they are somewhere in between...they neither do as much DMG as DPS-ers, nor do they heal as much as real healers.

Also, I often get "hit hard"..especially by Bright Wizards...they fry me in a no time.....maybe my armour/resistances are too small?

So I'm thinking to respec maybe...at least that I can do whenever I want. And I can't make the "wrong decision" with armour since T4 sets are allways the same.

Celoeys (Iamlegion), I know that you are a respected healer (you are Path of Dark Rites, right?), so I'd like to hear you opinnion:
does it improve your performance in skirmish vs players, how close is it to real healers (shaman, zealot), how hard is it to play...stuff like that.

Oh and if you could suggest some good healing equipement, a chalice to be precise (I haven't used them till yesterday, like the Essence regeneration effect)

Let's say I'd like to try it...would you recommend it?

Well the first thing I would consider is the following: Mythic wouldnt create classes/specs that are crap (and if they have they will be buffed oneday). The next thing is that i belive they your mate can probably take on 2 players at a time, in fact id say he could probably take on about 3-4 Tanks at a time. It would take him a day or two to beat em; but 2 he could easily do. Also if you are Torture you are pretty much the same as other DPS, ask yourself how many other DPS can solo 2 players?

Personally i went for DR because because I hate the latecy problem associated with melee. Anyway DOK healers are just as good as other healers. Common misconception is that they are worse because they do "damage" or are tougher. Throughout T3 I topped the heal boards in SCs (soz to toot my tooter, but those are the facts). In T4 I also do very well, always up there with the rest (aint SCed since full ani). The next thing is, if you are going to be a full on healer (ie spend RR pts on willpower) your normal melee attacks are laughable. Havent tried going Strength with DR (could be fun).

So a few pointers that I have learnt:
1) pre-heals. put dots on as many as you can before combat and then hit the replenish soul essence button (dont know what it is called).
2) The less you have to replenish your soul essence the better, so... make fist of Khaine an easy to use attack. Mine is my middle mouse button so I can move shoot and heal at once. Fist of Khaine is not for damage, all i use it for is to build soul essence.
3) You are a bit tougher than other healers. This means that you can get into a bit of combat now and then. Not that you do much damage, its more that if you attack an rdps they usually run, so you are able to disrupt their lines. But you will have to decide when it is best to got on the attack and when to stay back and heal.
4) Again because of your armour you can stay up there with the tanks. This means that stealthed WH arent such a problem. Id advise not to sit at the back with the other rdps, hide in the chaos of front line battle.

The rest is really up to you. You will have to discover what works for you, how you want to play and the small tweaks you want to make. For example ive become a little bit anti magic (disrupt of 30%). Toughness can also work allowing you to fight in the brawls more.

Like i said in game if you want a good charm, get the one with the best soul essence. Thats the first T4 inf reward the purple charm.

anyway hope i covered it all. My opinions and advice are based soley on playing a full out heal DOK, im sure there are many other ways to play it. Would be cool if you did something slightly different, would like to know how it is to play the other specs. And yes I would recomend it. Best healer in the game. Sorry Stuz, you will never be the no1 guild healer, Iam

hoped it helped:)

Sure it helped.

Thanks for all the tips & tricks...I'll surely use them, and maybe find something new out, like you said.

Well, I'll go for re-spec...if it doesn't suit me, I can allways re-spec back...few gold here or there...not a big deal.

Thanks again.

Also remember that the WPs are a bit OP at the moment, and are getting nerfed in the next patch!

Regarding Path of Torture:

Why I chose it:

I wanted to play something that doesn't bring much responsibility...like DPS or something. I played a tank back in WoW and did it quite fine, but never really liked the burden of responsibility. So the DoK was perfect, I can heal myself, and yet do fair damage.

For me, the Path of Torture is great for solo questing and PVE, i can pull a lot of mobs, survive, kill them fairly fast, and don't have to worry about healing potions and stuff like that. But I'm rarely doing anything solo now, so don't know do I need that so bad.

If I re-spec (having second thoughts again), I will surely miss the Fell Sacrifice ability which is an AoE that DoT-s and Cripples....and Essence Lash will be less powerfull (seems I will miss the AoE-s most)

Now, regarding RvR, it doesn't go as well as PVE...almost everyone who is the same level as I am will own me...
My RvR usually looks like this:

Stand back and heal a bit, then run to them, cast few AoE-s, run back before they kill me, cause if I stay they WILL kill me, then heal again and so.

Although I must admit, it was fun today in scenario, Stuzy healed me well while I was in constant combat.

The thing buggering me about Path of Dark Rites is the fact that I like to run into the action, so I'd get pretty bored if I would allways stand back and heal.
But your description of Dark Rites tactic is similliar to mine with torture....so the conclusion would be:

Torture: I will concentrate to combat and healing almost equally...but I wont heal extra much, and if I try to engage in longer combat, I will most surely die.
Dark Rites: I would be able to whitstand longer fights, but wouldn't fight as much because I would concentrate more on healing...which would maybe be a bit boring to me.

Everything has it's ups and downs...don't know which one to go with...

I'll have to check the Path of Sacrifice too, heh.

What do you think of this "experiment"?

I browsed the internets a bit, and bumped onto this:

http://vnboards.ign.com/destruction_healing_classes/b23133/109425812/p1/

Only one real feedback but sounds pretty nice:

my melee healing in frontline is amazing compared to my Torture build. healiing is about 3k less than dmg. and my survivability has improved 10 fold

So this is how I imagined it:

Wait till I get enough renown so I can wear few Anni as you said and then respec to this:

http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=23#9:8:0:0:13:10240:30:9600:9584:592:9595::::9605:9606:696:697

When in a group or warband, I would use the morals as shown, while when soloing, I'd probably switch the first morale to Divine Favor.
The Empowered Transfer and Khaine's Imbuement tactics would add usefull effects to my ablities, improving damaging and healing.
Khaine's Bounty would come in handy too, given that healing comes both from healing abilities & from damaging abilities so bigger chance to crit also.
When I get 4 annihilator parts, the heal crit chance will also raise by 5. (with Khaine's Bounty, my chances to survive would rise a bit I hope)
I'd use the Discipline tactic (well I am using it already) to raise my willpower so I can add some more points in strenght with Renown specialization points (I would probably also let down the weapon skill, so I can pump up Strenght and Willpower)

Then, when I would ding rr40, I would buy the Khaine's Vigor ability which is a very nice one I think.
The Soul Shielding also comes to mind, but I think it isn't really needed when I have Divine Protection for rank 3 morale. The Divine Protection can not only apsorb 4 times more damage, it also has no range (Soul Shielding has 150ft), doesn't cost any Soul Essence and has the same cooldown (60 secs sound pretty much for a
normal ability like Soul Shielding btw. O.o ).
And also, when in group, i fill the moral bar up to rank 3 in no time.
So that leaves me almost certain shoice of Khaine's Vigor over Soul Shielding.

EDIT: The underlined part is not correct. I noticed now that Soul Shielding gives cca 1100 damage absorption to every member, and Divine Protection 4500 alltogether, and only melee...but again...I prefer Divine Protection...

And finally, completition of Annihilator set would add two more points to the Path of Dark Rites, further improving my healing abilities.

I know, I know, I used the word "would" so many times that even I am in doubt would it work so nicely as I described...but I don't know...it seems interesting, risky...and I tend to be curious...I think it's worth a try (If I didn't think so, I wouldn't write this "essay", would I? )

What do you think?

Definatly interresting:)

Also specify what you would spend your RR on. If I had that build it would go towards Strength only and then Crit heals also.

First change is that id use divine favour rather than lifes end. Lifes end requires you to be in combat. I find that I dont really use divine favour that much, it is used as an emergency button. Its an instant heal which is ranged (unlike lifes end) and you can save anyone really. 10s I feel also isnt that much and if you are forced to heal yourself then the 10s goes fast.

Your tactics are very well thought out. I like it:) Personally i prefer Soul Shielding to divine protection. Divine protection is only melee and Universal confusion is just too tempting not to do. I suppose though if your heals are slightly worse then Divine protection would become more necessary.

In terms of your tree I would take off Pillage Essence as you should be able to but a large amount of soul essence with your basic attacks. Use that mastey point on Devour Essence rather. It will fit in well with the rest of you build.

But yes please try it. Was thinking of something vaguely along these lines and this looks rather tough. You really wont be dps and you really wont be healer, and not tank either. Instead you will have to be able to do all of them at once to really shine. Really hard me thinks in terms of micro but i think Really Really good once you get the hang of it.

93 strength bonus...*shivers*

Of course, it would look like that on RR80...the wounds is the filler for two points that left.

Divine Favor vs Life's End:

Yeah, that's kinda the same way I am using the Divine Favor too. Life's end would be tricky...it's micro like you said...maybe with some AoE-ing it would be efficient.
Oh well, it's the first morale...it is available in a no time...I can try it and if it doesn't work much, switch it whenever I want.

Soul Shielding vs Khaine's Imbuement vs Divine Protection

I guess when I ding RR50, I'll take them both. Or even better - won't take Pillage Essence like you said
(it doesn't heal anyone anyway), and take both of these on RR40.

Oh and regarding this:

Divine protection is only melee and Universal confusion is just too tempting not to do.

Universal Confusion is R2 and Divine Protection R3 morale, so one does not exclude the other, if that's what you thought.

Oh and I have to get that chalice in Chaos T4...(think I need half the bar).

This will be interesting.

No I meant that I normally use Unversal confusion before my moral can build any further and thus never really get to T3 moral. Also never really need the T3 moral as my heals are more than enough

Ahh, kk. True, true.

Interesting, since I have Anni on me, I'm usually near top or even 1st by renown in scenarios, with torture spec. Hope It'll stay the same when I respec.
Which will be....well...now.

I am tank so i never get any rr in SCs :/

when you going to learn that a black guard isnt a tank they cant hit or dps for anything

Don't hijack this thread, and i am a tank. My job is not to Dps or damage its to take damage.

Morinfen how goes the respec?

Going pretty fine, I'm liking it so far. ^^
I'm somewhere in the middle usually in scenarios, and since I have Annihilator, I think it's slightly heavier to kill me.

I tried using two swords again, but somehow don't find it as useful as Sword + Chalice, so I'm sticking to chalices probably.
The amount of damage --> syphoning --> healing that I do using twin swords isn't very close to the amount of healing with chalice cause I don't build soul essence with striking abilities as fast as I'd like to...and I don't feel that the damage raises significally with two swords.
Dunno how to put it...I just feel/do better with chalice atm.

From torture spec, I only really miss the DoT AoE ability...

Morin just want to know how much your Khaines Embrace heals people for. Need to know so that when we do dungeons I know if you are healer or dps. I think atm that you would be taken as dps and help along with heals anyway from combat heals.

Nominally it heals for 679 HP...but because of other bonuses (willpower etc.) I tried it in practice...jumped of the building, and healed myself. It heals for 1083 HP.

Healing in WB atm, seems it's usually for 1245 HP maximum.

yeh, ok you will be dps and then for certain parts you will be very useful indeed=P Plaguebeasts comes to mind they are a beast. If we have 3 healers on a tank then he will easily tank that npc

Nice. ;

Btw. Consume Essence is awesome, especially whe combined with Empowered Transfer tactic (gives additional 50% to healing of that ability)....it works like a charm when you attack the keep door with all tanks and meele dps-ers....all under 10 feet of you....just spam Consume Essence on the door and you'll see dozens of purple renown + numbers flying around you. Awesome.

Tried it in Bastion Stairs, works nice there too, dunno about tougher dungeons though.

If you wana see RR flying get Khaines Refreshment... a true AOE heal to everyone within about 20feet i think