Assault Rifle Healer

Assault Rifle Healer

So, is there some viability is using an AR for your main healing source? AR does have some direct heals, and it can give out nice leech bonuses, but it seems like it's healing is at least partially dependent on having high damage. That's handy solo (very handy ), but I'm not sure how well you could build AR for pure heals.

It'd be nice to know, since my solo DPS build is already fairly deep in AR healing specs (Five skills in the tree that gives Re-Animator), and I need to start on a healing deck to round out my options for parties. It'd be great if I could take my progress in AR, rather than having to start from scratch as Blood or Fist.

You can definitely use AR for healing. In 4/5 of the normal mode dungeons I run, AR healing by itself was sufficient (aka spamming anima shot, shot of anima, platoon/mortar support). I paired AR up with blood magic heals (Scarlet Arts and Angelic Aegis) for situations where there is high tank damage as I had a hard time keeping tanks alive just via AR on two specific boss fights in Darkness War.

I am writing an AR/blood healer build atm as I got alot of requests for it, I will post it up when I am done ;D

Glad to hear. I'm a big fan of guns in Urban Fantasy games such as this due to personal tastes (Magic? Hah! Old ways, too afraid of advancement. Give me science and technology any day!), and, like I said, am already knee-deep in AR Healing anyway. I had a brief stint as healer for an impromptu mission group, and enjoyed it fairly well, though I may need to reassign buttons for targeting team-mates.

I'd appreciate a sneak peak though. You don't have to give me much, just point out some of your favorite AR Skills for the healing build, and I'll figure out why they're good.

Ok here is the skills I have in my blood/AR build.

Actives

1. Ruby Curtain (blood)
2. Angelic Aegis or some group AoE shield from blood
3. Scarlet Arts (blood)
4. Shot of Anima
5. Platoon
6. Mortar Support
7. Anima shot

Passives:
1. passive that increase anima shot damage/heal by 7.5%
2. Passive that increase leech or blood magic shields by 25% (depending on if I expect to use blood or AR more).
3. Passive that increase the heal amount on shot of anima but removes the leech effect.
4. Passive that increase assault rifle damage by 10%.
5. Passive that increase effectiveness of angelic aegis when defensive target is below 50%

Basically, on most fights, you can just spam Anima Shot. if there is burst damage that can't be recovered by anima shot alone, you will use shot of anima to make up for the health difference. If there is group damage use Platoon/Mortar Support as need.

When there is heavy bursty tank damage, spam Ruby Curtain on tank to build up resources and use Scarlet Arts as soon as you get 5 blood resources. If the tank health is critical and you don't have time to get Scarlet Arts off, use Angelic Aegis and then use your health to power Scarlet Arts. You can use platoon to top yourself up from the blood damage if needed.

Anyways, this is the rough gest of it. I still need to look over somethings. This is the build I healed all 5 normal dungeons with it. Havn't done any elite dungeons yet so i dunno how it will perform yet.

As an AR healer I've fully tanked Polaris, Inferno and some bosses of Darkness War because of wannabe tanks that don't do their job properly.

I'm just in blue QL5-6 gear and weapons, and I usually equip my head slot with a tanking talisman, the rest are pure healing talismans.

The trick, if there is any, is in your passives, and spamming attack button all the time.

I usually build with anima shot, because it let me move freely, and I like that!

My Passives:

Anticoagulant: when I leech my target is Afflicted
Leech Therapy: when I leech an Afflicted mob, I PbaoE Heal 5m around me
Veteran: the 7th time I leech on a mob, all my team is healed and they get a leech effect
Post-op: when the leech effect from Veteran finishes, they get healed
Increased Dosage: removes the leech part of my consumer to make it heal for more. Actually I'm having doubts about it, but better safe than sorry.
Shadow Medic: 7.5% more healing is always good
Lick Your wounds: So I dont have to take care of myself.

I Just get the Necromancer outfit and I'm gonna open the fist outer rings so I get Healing Sparks and then change my building to Anima Burst and get more healing :-)

I'm an AR healer, here's my current build:

Anima Shot (for mobility)
Anima Burst (I'm now seeing that it's healing for more than shot spam)
Shot of Anima (the best AR heal consumer for IMO, though I don't think there are many anyway)
Lock and Load (allows me to ignore Shot of Anima's cooldown every 20s and is good for emergency healing)
Re-animator (Elite, a nice heal)
My other two slots have Anima Charge and Thor's Hammer because I don't have many other suitable abilities at the moment.

Passives are

Anima Boost
Extra Dosage
Eagle Eye
Extra Clip
Experience
Shadow Medic
High Voltage

I've healed Polaris and Inferno without too much issue, it's definitely a good idea to pick up the AOE heals as I'm doing now.

In beta i had a full AR heal specced and ended up with another guy practicly same build running inferno. We where the "healer" so we where 4DPS and a tank, and i must say it was the strongest team setup ive seen in that dungeon so far.
Noone went below 75% hp, not very hard with a double anima shot, shot of anima combo flying around nonstop. throw in anima wells and leeches and it went pretty much carte blanch eyes closed grinding.
As stand alone healer i wouldnt recommend it but a duo of heal spec ARs can easily replace a healer wich in some cases is even better since a healer does little to no damage where two ARs do.

Having now run all of the Elite dungeons multiple times as the only healer of the group, I'd say yes, AR healing is awesome. At the moment, I'm using AR/Pistol, full heal gear apart from a minor or major tank item depending on the Dungeon:

Actives:
1. Backup Drone (+30% healing, ace for picking your tank off the ground)
2. Win-Win (PBAoE Cleanse)
3. Re-Animator (Great channeled heal)
4. Shot Of Anima (Launchable every fourth shot for massive healing)
5. Platoon (Emergency/Top up team heal)
6. Mortar Support (Emergency/Top up team heal)
7. Anima shot (The bread and butter of an AR healer, prefer it to Anima Burst)

Passives:
1. Veteran (Leech effect on allies every 7th shot for splash healing)
2. Anticoagulant (Affliction to trigger Leech Therapy)
3. Leech Therapy (PBAoE Heal for even more splash)
4. Increased Dosage (Improves Shot Of Anima)
5. Shadow Medic (7.5% more direct heal)
6. Anima Boost (Mandatory with Anima Shot)
7. Hot Iron (Every 8th heal is 50% better, try to use it for Shot Of Anima or one of the PBAoE heals)

Hey awesome, I am working on an AR/Pistols build myself, and I was a bit disappointed until now to be apparently the only one seriously planning such a build!
Got a question about Anima Shot though : what makes it better than Anima Burst? In my own build, I use Anima Burst as my healing builder, with a couple of burst synergies from both AR and Fist passives (improved bursts, healing sparks, maybe ferocity too). Should it not make it a better choice than Anima Shot at least in this case?

Also, isn't it a bit hard sometime to make use of PBAoE heals and cleanses? I would think that the healer tries to stay away from the action, especially when using an AR.

The Anima Burst vs Anima Shot is just a feeling sort of thing, do believe it's been confirmed that Anima Burst has a better heal output. I can't stand the 1s slowdown though, and I'd have to get rid of some of the splash heal to make it worth it too (Healing Sparks like you said, lovely ability).

And yeah, the PBAoE's are often a pain in the ass to use. The Leech Theraphy I pretty much only use to keep myself and possibly the RDPS topped up, while the cleanse is a highly situational thing, so I manage