The honest verdict first
The Healer is a specialist. It gives up personal killing speed, and in solo play that makes progression slower than an offensive Mage variant.
But in a three- or four-player group, it can out-value several damage builds on the list above it — because it keeps the party fighting through mistakes and long encounters instead of wiping to them.
What the build actually does
Four layers of healing, and understanding which is which stops you wasting casts:
- Water Aura — automatic healing of injured nearby allies, scaling with Intelligence. This is the backbone. It requires no input during a fight.
- Life Burst — burst healing, and it triggers when you kill an enemy with a magic weapon. It rewards you for joining in rather than standing at the back.
- Waters of Life — improves the Water Aura healing.
- Saviour — the emergency button when someone overextends.
And two group-utility skills nobody else brings:
- Righteous Fire — lets your healing trigger fire damage against nearby Fell enemies. This is what makes an aggressive support viable.
- Shroud Filter — gives your magic damage a chance to restore Shroud time to nearby allies. In deep Shroud or Cinder’s Cradle, where the timer kills more than enemies do, that is unique value.
Skills, in priority order
Core skills: Healer, Healer II, Water Aura, Waters of Life, Life Burst, Saviour, Healing Revive, Righteous Fire, Shroud Filter.
The order to take them:
- Healer — the base multiplier on everything else.
- Life Burst — reliable active topping-up. This is what you will actually press.
- Water Aura — passive sustain. It keeps the party upright between fights without you touching anything.
- Righteous Fire — take it before the defensives if your group is aggressive; the damage adds up.
- Waters of Life — scales the Aura once you have it.
- Saviour — the emergency button.
- Healing Revive — improves the Health restored when you bring someone back.
- Shroud Filter — late, because it only pays off in the deepest Shroud.
Stats
Intelligence first, then Spirit.
Intelligence scales both your magic damage and your Intelligence-scaling healing — it is the single stat that does double duty here. Spirit raises Mana, which is the pool you will actually run dry.
Weapons and gear
| Slot | Best in slot |
|---|---|
| Weapon | Oracle’s Everblue |
| Off-hand | Mythic Wand |
| Armour | Lifelock set (an alternative best-in-slot pick is Waveborne Ritualist) |
| Ring | Ring of the Ancients |
| Spells | Eternal Heal Cascade II, Eternal Chain Heal II |
Sources name two different best-in-slot armour sets — Lifelock and Waveborne Ritualist. Both are support-oriented; finish whichever you can complete, since partial sets lose most of their value.
Two notes on the weapons. The Mythic Wand is the mana-regen half of the kit — and per the weapon stats, Blizzard Wand also carries Mana Leech +3%, which is a reasonable early substitute. For the staff, Shroud Weaver grants Mana Currents +2 skill rank, which directly boosts a skill rather than a number.
The Righteous Fire angle
Most players build healer as pure pacifism, then wonder why it feels passive.
Righteous Fire changes the loop. Because your healing triggers fire damage against nearby Fell enemies, you are rewarded for standing close to the fight and healing on cooldown rather than hovering at range. Combined with Life Burst — which needs you to land a killing blow with a magic weapon — the build quietly demands that you participate in the kill.
That is also why the build pairs well with a tank holding threat: you can stand in the pocket, heal on cooldown, and let Righteous Fire and Life Burst do their work.
The 1.0 change that matters to you
In 1.0, food no longer grants raw stat increases like +5 Intelligence. It now boosts percentage damage multipliers and resource regeneration.
For a healer that is mostly good news: skills that give percentage bonuses or flat increases gained importance, while skills scaling off raw stats got weaker. Water Aura’s Intelligence scaling still works, but do not expect old food-buff habits to carry you.
Respeccing
Respec by spending Runes at a Flame Altar. 1.0 reset every skill tree on first load, so experimentation is expected.
The sensible path: play a general build for the first 15–20 levels, then respec into healer around level 25 once you know you have a group. Do not respec for individual boss fights — carry the right consumables instead.