Life Staff PvE healer build

achesoma · August 2021

Life Staff full healer PvE Build for Solo, Group and Expedition (dungeon) gameplay experience.

https://nwcalc.org/?st=1-5,2-5,3-5,4-5,5-5&w1=41&s1=2,6,5,4,8,12,9,16,20,23,26,31,25,29,34,36,27,21,30&k1=20,4,25&k2=

I experimented with various life staff builds during my testing. My experience is from level 1-34. And of course, it’s beta so plenty can change. I ran Amrine Excavation about a dozen times to get a feel for dungeon healing. This build was by far my strongest and most “OP” I came up with for my 70 hour test session. I could easily solo and even face-tank 3-4 standard mobs in those tight quarters areas.

Gearing:

· Light armor- the 20% damage boost is a must have and dodge rolling is crucial.

· Stack Focus- this build really requires a high amount of Focus stacking. I put every attribute point into Focus. Any item with more Focus was an upgrade. By level 34 I was in the 180 Focus range. The bonuses for Focus are also very beneficial to healing.

50 Focus: +10% mana regen rate; +10% fishing line tension
100 Focus: +20 mana; +10% salvaging yield increase
150 Focus: +20% healing output; -10% decrease in carry weight of fish
200 Focus: +20% casted buff duration; +10% fishing line tension
250 Focus: +30 mana on any self or group kill; +10% increase to caught fish size
300 Focus: When your mana hits 0, gain 200% mana regen for 10s (60s cooldown); -10% cooldown reduction for Inn fast travel

· Faction vendor- grinding tokens for your faction vendor lets you buy great focus gear at various tiers. The level 25 tier has nice bonuses to lowering cooldowns and added physical protection. This is what I mostly used unless I looted a nice upgrade.

· Second weapon- whatever your personal preference. Weapon swapping isn’t really beneficial in this build. Personally, I just equipped whatever gave me the most Focus. If weapon swapping is your thing, I highly recommend not using another magic weapon as it will deplete your mana rapidly. Some like Hatchet for debuffing. Keep in mind, when you swap out of Life Staff you lose buffs such as Sacred Protection and Spirits United.

Must have skills:

· Absolved: Life Staffs Light and Heavy attack no longer take mana.

· Blissful Touch: Light attacks now heal target for 20% weapon damage when hitting an ally (this includes yourself). Now with Absolved + Blissful Touch you now have an endless spam heal.

· Mending Touch: Life Staffs Heavy Attack now removes one debuff when hitting an ally.(this is only way to remove debuffs unless going deep into Splash of Light line.

· Revitalize- When you hit with a light attack reduce all your cooldowns by 5%. Given that this build involves constant Light attack spam, it rapidly brings down your ability cooldowns.

My abilities and what I like:

· Sacred Ground –strong ability. Important to keep up on tank for not just the healing but the stamina regen buff.(Must have)

· Orb of Protection-nice buffing ability with short cd that also does good damage. Grants Fortify that reduces damage by 15% and Recovery which is a small health regen. Not as strong as other 2 abilities but compliment them well. Personally, I find it fun to use but the only I’d be willing to give up if other abilities get improvement.

· Beacon –VERY strong ability. Its full duration lasts even after the mob dies. You want constant uptime on this for boss fights.(Must have)

I lead off with Beacon followed by always using Orb of Protection whenever off cd. I save Sacred Ground for when tank has mobs rounded up and has picked his spot. All 3 of these abilities with their improvement skills, work very cohesively together. Can easily heal multiple players, keeps them fully topped off and continuously buffed. I don’t have to worry about single target healing which can be quite the chore in a game where constant movement is a key mechanic. In my experience, tanks are good about staying in the “blue stuff” and other players tend to follow suit. I tried the single target heals Divine Embrace and Lights Embrace but I wasn’t impressed. Single target healing just felt clunky and overly cumbersome for little reward. Single target heals just don’t feel impactful when there is a cooldown and the ability can’t be spammed. The combo of 3 AoE heals worked better at keeping others topped off and was more mana efficient. Rarely did anyone drop below 50% health. I didn’t try Splash of Light but the small amount healed with the long cooldown didn’t seem impressive. I’m curious if anyone else tried it and what their experience was like.

Overall, was fun being able to do damage while simultaneously healing, cleansing, and buffing. It’s a much more engaging experience compared to typical “whack-a-mole” sit in the background just healing style.

Something to note, Protectors Touch fortify buff does NOT stack with fortify buff from Orb of Protection.

Feel free to share your favorite Light Staff builds and let me know what you like or don’t like. I’d like to see others experiences with Life Staff healing, especially at higher levels.

Iselin · August 2021

I was heading in the same direction as you but I didn't put quite as many hours in so I capped out at 25 and my life staff skills much lower than yours (I experimented with all weapons so my weapon XP was spread around far and wide.)

I agree about both Sacred Ground and Beacon as well as the passives. The no mana cost for light and heavies and healing splash for lights are awesome must have abilities.

For solo PvE I went with hatchet for my 2nd weapon focusing exclusively on Berzerk and its passives as well as a couple of light attack damage increasing and absorption granting passives. The HOT you get from a fully specced Berzerk is also increased by the +50% healing from all sources from the Blessed Sacred Ground passive.

I was routinely pulling 4 or 5 mobs, popping Sacred Ground (and beacon if needed) switching to the hatchet, popping berzerk and just killing them all while in the Sacred Circle. Berzerk aslo gives you stagger immunity so there was not much chance I would get knocked out of the sacred circle.

I did also go light armor for the increased damage and dodge roll instead of side step and stacked focus like you.

For dungeon healing I'll be going with the ice gauntlet almost solely for Entomb which is a very fast mana regen ability that takes you from 0 to 100% in about 4 seconds while making you invulnerable inside the the ice block - it's useful for both getting mana back as well as defensively to give others a chance to get mobs off you while taking no damage.

I didn't play around with the single target heals a lot but enough to notice that Divine Embrace was bugged and did nothing half the time you used it. IMO, that is the theoretical best single target one of the 3 but it needs to be fixed to work reliably first. It also synergizes nicely with the utimate passive that increase healing by 30% on anyone at < 50% health when Divine Embrace then heals 2 targets instead of 1 for the full amount.

Nice write up!

Brainy · August 2021

Yeah this is a good build. Pretty much what I was doing, once I made it to the 40's all that focus started feeling more powerful for sure.

I started with the single target heal spells, that was a complete disaster. I switched out my secondary Ice Gauntlets to Great Axe and I was able to solo way better. But the higher I got the worse the Great Axe seemed to be, even with the Amber Gem to covert some of focus to Great Axe stat.

I wonder if at higher levels if Ice is worth going back too.

In regards too your build, wonder if its worth removing a few points from Protector to Healing to get the final 30% extra healing. Hard to choose what to lose thou.

Swapping radiance protection for disparate speed might be better. Over the 35 sec cooldown you can potentially reduce it by 24.5 secs on just that spell.

achesoma · August 2021

Iselin said:

I was heading in the same direction as you but I didn't put quite as many hours in so I capped out at 25 and my life staff skills much lower than yours (I experimented with all weapons so my weapon XP was spread around far and wide.)

I agree about both Sacred Ground and Beacon as well as the passives. The no mana cost for light and heavies and healing splash for lights are awesome must have abilities.

For solo PvE I went with hatchet for my 2nd weapon focusing exclusively on Berzerk and its passives as well as a couple of light attack damage increasing and absorption granting passives. The HOT you get from a fully specced Berzerk is also increased by the +50% healing from all sources from the Blessed Sacred Ground passive.

I was routinely pulling 4 or 5 mobs, popping Sacred Ground (and beacon if needed) switching to the hatchet, popping berzerk and just killing them all while in the Sacred Circle. Berzerk aslo gives you stagger immunity so there was not much chance I would get knocked out of the sacred circle.

I did also go light armor for the increased damage and dodge roll instead of side step and stacked focus like you.

For dungeon healing I'll be going with the ice gauntlet almost solely for Entomb which is a very fast mana regen ability that takes you from 0 to 100% in about 4 seconds while making you invulnerable inside the the ice block - it's useful for both getting mana back as well as defensively to give others a chance to get mobs off you while taking no damage.

I didn't play around with the single target heals a lot but enough to notice that Divine Embrace was bugged and did nothing half the time you used it. IMO, that is the theoretical best single target one of the 3 but it needs to be fixed to work reliably first. It also synergizes nicely with the utimate passive that increase healing by 30% on anyone at < 50% health when Divine Embrace then heals 2 targets instead of 1 for the full amount.

Nice write up!

Thanks! That hatchet sounds like a fun combo. I gave hatchet a little bit of a try but was really focused on getting as many points into life staff as I could before the beta ended.

That ice gauntlet ability sounds great. Will likely go with that for dungeons. I imagine it will be really useful for higher levels when things get more challenging.

I too noticed a bunch of ghosting with Lights Embrace. It would do full animation but nothing would happen. Good to know it wasn't just me. Would happen mostly when trying to self heal with ctrl+ by default.

Brainy · August 2021

My problem with Ice Gauntlets was you couldn't kill mobs fast, I was getting chased all around by adds due to the heals getting threat.

I think at higher levels with better CC and tanks with better threat generation then Ice will be better thou.

As far as single target, it was bugged for me a lot also, but even if they fix ghost heals, the targeting for single target was horrible IMO, I couldn't deal with it, maybe with a bunch of practice it would change I don't know.

In PVP trying to target a person when 10+ people are around, yeah good luck.

achesoma · August 2021

Brainy said:

Yeah this is a good build. Pretty much what I was doing, once I made it to the 40's all that focus started feeling more powerful for sure.

I started with the single target heal spells, that was a complete disaster. I switched out my secondary Ice Gauntlets to Great Axe and I was able to solo way better. But the higher I got the worse the Great Axe seemed to be, even with the Amber Gem to covert some of focus to Great Axe stat.

I wonder if at higher levels if Ice is worth going back too.

In regards too your build, wonder if its worth removing a few points from Protector to Healing to get the final 30% extra healing. Hard to choose what to lose thou.

Swapping radiance protection for disparate speed might be better. Over the 35 sec cooldown you can potentially reduce it by 24.5 secs on just that spell.

The main thing keeping me taking Desperate Speed and Divine Blessing is the "below 50% health" requirement. Health dropping below 50% just didn't occur frequently enough to make me consider it. Though, at higher levels, if that changes I would consider swapping Spirits United for Desperate Speed. As of right now, I don't see anything else worth sacrificing for Divine Blessing. I never tried Desperate Speed, I wonder how impactful it feels. Revitalize already lowers cds pretty fast given I'm always spamming light attacks with this build.

Tokken · August 2021

Stizzled said:

I'm probably the only one in my group who is willing to put up with the way healing works in this game, so this is pretty helpful. Awesome write up!

2H Mace / Life Staff for me. Paladin ho!

2Hmace? I didn't see one of those in the game. Am I missing something?

Tokken · August 2021

It's been one day! Geez, I miss the game already. LOL

achesoma · August 2021

Tokken said:

Stizzled said:

I'm probably the only one in my group who is willing to put up with the way healing works in this game, so this is pretty helpful. Awesome write up!

2H Mace / Life Staff for me. Paladin ho!

2Hmace? I didn't see one of those in the game. Am I missing something?

I'm assuming he means War Hammer.

achesoma · August 2021

Zenislav said:

Life Staff feals so op in this game. You have decent dmg and you heal everything. No downtime and is nasty in pvp. On top you get salvage and fishing bonus

The only drawback is no other weapon scales with Focus. It's an attribute solely for Life Staff. So no other weapon really pairs well. And for it to be strong, you have to stack all your points into focus. The design appears as if the devs never intended for main life staff wielders to weapon swap.

Tokken · August 2021

achesoma said:

Tokken said:

Stizzled said:

I'm probably the only one in my group who is willing to put up with the way healing works in this game, so this is pretty helpful. Awesome write up!

2H Mace / Life Staff for me. Paladin ho!

2Hmace? I didn't see one of those in the game. Am I missing something?

I'm assuming he means War Hammer.

For some reason I don't think of the 2 H warhammer as a mace. lol But it is.

Ashlura · August 2021

I went with life/ice.
https://nwcalc.org/?st=1-5,2-5,3-5,4-195,5-5&w1=41&s1=20,23,26,31,2,4,8,12,6,16,9,13,17,7,19,25,29,34,37&w2=1357&s2=21,24,28,31,36,22,25,32,27,35,29,33,37,3,6,10,14,18,38&k1=20,4,25&k2=

Light gear focused on constitution for a tanky healer.

Pop Ice Pylon, Ice Storm, Orb of protection on enemy, beacon and sacred ground, then spam light attacks. Mana gets low, entombed to build it back up, then repeat if need be.

I used this in PvP and PvE. I fought three people near my level at level 20 and they were all barely above me. They could not kill me. Used light dodge to get out of the way, spam all the AOE's, and just couldnt die.

Slapshot1188 · August 2021

Pretty sure the build will change at release as one of the main reasons for the delay was to work through some balance changes.

achesoma · August 2021

Torval said:

Good build, thanks for that. I'll definitely give life staff another go when we can get back into the game. I don't think I really gave it a fair shake like I did with fire and ice and the various melee weapons.

Overall I found magic builds much more work and effort to get the same results as a melee build. Ground target AoE was especially frustrating, especially for fire. Ice was a bit more reliable. I hated how the primary resource was depleted through light and heavy attacks and needing to spend a skill point to remove it (for ice). Int only works for fire/ice but using both weapons together is a recipe for no mana. On the other hand melee weapons seemed to pair well and provide good synergy.

Hybrid builds with attributes (Str or Dex + Focus) is also underwhelming. Hopefully this situation is being reviewed because hybrid builds are a strength of the core design.

Yeah, the attribute system is a really weird design. There is too much benefit to attribute stacking and no benefit for mixing attributes.

There are gems that change the attribute in which your weapon scales. I have not tried yet so I'm not entirely sure how well they work.

For example:

Amber
Weapon - Arboreal - % of Damage is converted to Nature - this damage scales off base weapon stat or FOCUS - whichever is higher. - 20/30/40/50
Armor - Nature Ward - % Nature Damage Absorption - 2/2.5/3/3.8

So it's my understanding that if I were to put this in a War Hammer its damage would scale from Focus instead of Strength assuming my Focus attribute is higher.

achesoma · August 2021

Ashlura said:

I went with life/ice.
https://nwcalc.org/?st=1-5,2-5,3-5,4-195,5-5&w1=41&s1=20,23,26,31,2,4,8,12,6,16,9,13,17,7,19,25,29,34,37&w2=1357&s2=21,24,28,31,36,22,25,32,27,35,29,33,37,3,6,10,14,18,38&k1=20,4,25&k2=

Light gear focused on constitution for a tanky healer.

Pop Ice Pylon, Ice Storm, Orb of protection on enemy, beacon and sacred ground, then spam light attacks. Mana gets low, entombed to build it back up, then repeat if need be.

I used this in PvP and PvE. I fought three people near my level at level 20 and they were all barely above me. They could not kill me. Used light dodge to get out of the way, spam all the AOE's, and just couldnt die.

Did you find yourself not needing Mending Touch for debuff removal? It does seem like a really strong PvP build.

Iselin · August 2021

Stizzled said:

achesoma said:

Torval said:

Good build, thanks for that. I'll definitely give life staff another go when we can get back into the game. I don't think I really gave it a fair shake like I did with fire and ice and the various melee weapons.

Overall I found magic builds much more work and effort to get the same results as a melee build. Ground target AoE was especially frustrating, especially for fire. Ice was a bit more reliable. I hated how the primary resource was depleted through light and heavy attacks and needing to spend a skill point to remove it (for ice). Int only works for fire/ice but using both weapons together is a recipe for no mana. On the other hand melee weapons seemed to pair well and provide good synergy.

Hybrid builds with attributes (Str or Dex + Focus) is also underwhelming. Hopefully this situation is being reviewed because hybrid builds are a strength of the core design.

Yeah, the attribute system is a really weird design. There is too much benefit to attribute stacking and no benefit for mixing attributes.

There are gems that change the attribute in which your weapon scales. I have not tried yet so I'm not entirely sure how well they work.

For example:

Amber
Weapon - Arboreal - % of Damage is converted to Nature - this damage scales off base weapon stat or FOCUS - whichever is higher. - 20/30/40/50
Armor - Nature Ward - % Nature Damage Absorption - 2/2.5/3/3.8

So it's my understanding that if I were to put this in a War Hammer its damage would scale from Focus instead of Strength assuming my Focus attribute is higher.

It only converts a % of your weapon damage, and that converted damage is then scaled based on whichever stat is higher.

So, in your example, if your Focus stat was higher than Strength then a % of your War Hammer damage would scale off of Focus, but the majority of the damage would still scale off of Strength.

It does not entirely switch that weapon's main attribute.

Now, later in the game we could see gems where that percentage is close to 100%, at which point the gems would function as everyone seems to think they do/should.

The highest % gems in the game currently are 50% so you can only ever convert at most half of the damage to your chosen type. The lowest quality gems are 20% so the range is 20-50.

Iselin · August 2021

achesoma said:

Yeah, the attribute system is a really weird design. There is too much benefit to attribute stacking and no benefit for mixing attributes.

This is new since last year. In the 2020 preview beta different stats affected different things about all combat - crit chance, mana recovery, stamina recovery, etc.

Over the past year they got rid of that and also added the bonuses when you hit certain breakpoints in a stat every 50 points.

The current recommended end-game meta is pretty well 300 for your main stat and 200 constitution for hit points.

Armitige001 · September 2021

Not a big fan of sacred ground. Its great for clearing trash but its fixed placement doesnt work for me. Beacon is great because it can attach to an enemy/player. That is my experience coming from hundreds of hours playing both a healer and a tank at the same time.
Below is a pve build I threw together for you guys:

https://newworldfans.com/builds/pve-healz-878b09

Some of you may be confused by this build but is most likely because you have not really looked deep enough at the spec.
Lights embrace is only a 4 sec cd and has a fast cast animation. Using 200 focus, glowing focus and magnify you are getting an increased 40%+2sec buff/heal duration which is pretty damn huge. Lights embrace heals an extra 30% for each buff on the target. I dont think a lot of you realize how many buffs your grp has with a build like this.
2 buffs from orb. 2 from beacon if you use speed of light. 1 from sacred protection. 1 from spirits united. That's 6 buffs and 180% extra healing making you heal for 280% of weapon dmg every 4 seconds with l.embrace. Its 310% if they have a food buff. Ill let that sink in.
Divine embrace is great for the chain heal but tbh my grp is usually above 50% and he points spent for the perks just are not worth it.

Slapshot1188 · September 2021

Armitige001 said:

Not a big fan of sacred ground. Its great for clearing trash but its fixed placement doesnt work for me. Beacon is great because it can attach to an enemy/player. That is my experience coming from hundreds of hours playing both a healer and a tank at the same time.
Below is a pve build I threw together for you guys:

https://newworldfans.com/builds/pve-healz-878b09

Some of you may be confused by this build but is most likely because you have not really looked deep enough at the spec.
Lights embrace is only a 4 sec cd and has a fast cast animation. Using 200 focus, glowing focus and magnify you are getting an increased 40%+2sec buff/heal duration which is pretty damn huge. Lights embrace heals an extra 30% for each buff on the target. I dont think a lot of you realize how many buffs your grp has with a build like this.
2 buffs from orb. 2 from beacon if you use speed of light. 1 from sacred protection. 1 from spirits united. That's 6 buffs and 180% extra healing making you heal for 280% of weapon dmg every 4 seconds with l.embrace. Its 310% if they have a food buff. Ill let that sink in.
Divine embrace is great for the chain heal but tbh my grp is usually above 50% and he points spent for the perks just are not worth it.

I fooled around with different builds last weekend but I still love Sacred Ground. I settled on Sacred Ground, Lights Embrace and Beacon. Yes the fixed placement is a big negative, but the 50% buff to all heals (including it's own) is massive. I think Sacred Ground itself counts as a buff too.

Armitige001 · September 2021

Slapshot1188 said:

Armitige001 said:

Not a big fan of sacred ground. Its great for clearing trash but its fixed placement doesnt work for me. Beacon is great because it can attach to an enemy/player. That is my experience coming from hundreds of hours playing both a healer and a tank at the same time.
Below is a pve build I threw together for you guys:

https://newworldfans.com/builds/pve-healz-878b09

Some of you may be confused by this build but is most likely because you have not really looked deep enough at the spec.
Lights embrace is only a 4 sec cd and has a fast cast animation. Using 200 focus, glowing focus and magnify you are getting an increased 40%+2sec buff/heal duration which is pretty damn huge. Lights embrace heals an extra 30% for each buff on the target. I dont think a lot of you realize how many buffs your grp has with a build like this.
2 buffs from orb. 2 from beacon if you use speed of light. 1 from sacred protection. 1 from spirits united. That's 6 buffs and 180% extra healing making you heal for 280% of weapon dmg every 4 seconds with l.embrace. Its 310% if they have a food buff. Ill let that sink in.
Divine embrace is great for the chain heal but tbh my grp is usually above 50% and he points spent for the perks just are not worth it.

I fooled around with different builds last weekend but I still love Sacred Ground. I settled on Sacred Ground, Lights Embrace and Beacon. Yes the fixed placement is a big negative, but the 50% buff to all heals (including it's own) is massive. I think Sacred Ground itself counts as a buff too.

It does count yes and it is great for clearing most of the excavation. I don't know how far you have progressed in NW but most of the end bosses its just not very useful at all. Trust me they get quite a lot harder past level 50

The build I linked is also great for grp pvp with a couple minor changes. Situational of course but I prefer the added damage from orb along with the buffs you give to the group. A sword n board tank does not need the stamina from sacred ground, I know this because my build is sword and life staff. This is my end game build and I am extremely hard to kill in both pve and pvp while being able to keep my group up with ease:

https://newworldfans.com/builds/group-pvp-paladin-6c2df8

For the comments about having a hard time target healing your group members you just use your scroll mouse and it will flip from member to member or you can hit F1 to target self.
Hope this helps!

Brainy · September 2021

I hate healing in this game, I always play a main healer. This is the first game I am considering switching out of healing. Single targeting just seems way too difficult. Maybe if I got to max level and after a lot of practice it would seem smoother, but it seems horrible so far up to 50.

I tried both main and off-healer in closed beta, off healing was more enjoyable, but this open beta I switched to full dps mage fire/ice and it was way more fun.

Is Trinity required at max level? I am curious whether you can beat the higher content with different group setups, like only off healers vs main healers.

Iselin · September 2021

Brainy said:

Is Trinity required at max level? I am curious whether you can beat the higher content with different group setups, like only off healers vs main healers.

Trinity is never required at any level since there is no LFG tool to enforce it. It's however a given group of players wants to do it. But it can and will get chaotic if you don't at least have a tank who can keep the boss focused on them.

I healed my first expedition as a healer but the party also had a good tank and a couple of people with the so called "paladin build" (heavy armor + great axe + life staff) and that run was smooth as butter.

My second run had no tank, mostly ranged DPS and only one other player with a life staff secondary. That one was a pain where we all took turns kiting the boss and the ranged DPS were a PITA to heal because they were never anywhere near my ground target AOE heals (and at 25 single target heals are underwhelming.) We got through it but it wasn't pretty

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Life Staff PvE healer build

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Life Staff PvE healer build

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Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!

Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!

Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!