Hey everyone, I started using an Assault Rifle/Blood Magic healing build early on and have got quite a few people asking me to post my build. I delayed this a bit as I wanted to see how this handles at semi end-game. As of the time posting this guide, I have successfully healed through all the dungeons on all modes except for Nightmare (defeated the Gatekeeper). I use a slightly modified version build for soloing and had no issues in most areas although the lack of cleanse is starting to get to me in late Transylvania.
Navigation
Introduction
Early/Newbie Build (60 points)
Med-game build (164 points)
End-game non-specialized build
End-game AoE damage build
End-game heavy tank damage build
Problems
Rotations
Discussion on specific abilities/passives
Gear
Defeating the Gatekeeper as an AR/Blood healer.
Introduction
The blood/AR build is an offensive healing build that also provide a little bit of extra DPS to dungeon groups. It is a easy to use build – I have sometimes referred it as the “One Button Smasher” because most of the fights I just press one button over and over. This build take advantage of AR’s direct healing abilities combined with Blood Magic’s shield abilities.
AR’s Anima Shot will do must of your healing. It will trigger passives that also heal the group members as well. When tank’s HP dip a bit below comfort zone, a Shot of Anima with 5 AR resources should top the tank off. On fights with heavy tank damage, you will depend on shields from Blood Magic much more.
Early AP Cost/Newbie Build (59 points)
Early on, you will want to focus on a single weapon rather than spread out into two weapons. As the tank damage in early dungeons it’s quite low and the gap in your output damage isn’t too far from DPSers, picking up the Asssault Rifle abilities will help you get used to the art of AR healing and also allow you to solo stuff effectively. This build lacks AoE healing abilities so you will want to start working towards Support Team section of AR to get Platoon and the passives along the way.
Actives
Anima Shot
Shot of Anima
Lock & Load
DPS
DPS
DPS
DPS
Passives
Anima Boost
Increased Dosage
Experience
Extra Clip
Eagle Eye
Medium AP Cost /Mid game build (164 points)
This is where you combine the powers of the two healing weapons to allow you to heal through some moderate tank damage with excellent group healing options.
Actives
Blood Shield (resource builder)
Angelic Aegis
Lock & Load
Shot of Anima
Platoon
Hematic Rites
Anima Shot
Passives
Anima Boost
Increased Dosage
Anticoagulant
Leech Therapy
Angel’s Touch
Coagulation
Rapid Shield
End-game non-specialized build
Abilities in bold are those that are not changed between the three builds
Actives
Blood Shield (resource builder)
The Scarlet Arts
Shot of Anima
Cold Blooded
Anima Shot/Anima Burst
Lock & Load
Platoon
Passives
Anima Boost/Improved Bursts
Increased Dosage
Shadow Medic
Veteran
Extra Clip
Anticoagulant
Leech Therapy
End-game AoE damage Build
Actives
Blood Shield (resource builder)
The Scarlet Arts
Shot of Anima
Cold Blooded
Anima Shot/Anima Burst
Mortar Support/Blood Pact
Platoon
Passives
Anima Boost/Improved Bursts
Increased Dosage
Shadow Medic
Veteran
Anticoagulant
Leech Therapy
Sanguineous
End-game Heavy Tank Damage build
Actives
Blood Shield (resource builder)
The Scarlet Arts
Shot of Anima
Cold Blooded
Anima Shot/Anima Burst
Lock & Load
Angelic Aegis
Passives
Anima Boost/Improved Bursts
Increased Dosage
Shadow Medic
Coagulation
Sanguineous
Angel’s Touch
Extra Clip
Problems
Blood: Barriers do not stack. Stronger ones will overwrite weaker ones but weaker ones cannot overwrite stronger ones. This means that if you use a resource builder like Ruby Curtain/Blood shield after one of your bigger shields (i.e. Angelic Aegis), only the heal portion from resource builder will be effective.
AR: Using the heals from Assault Rifle will require an offensive target to hit and requires you to face the offensive target. This can be problematic sometimes when there are multiple adds (you don’t get to build your full resources on them before they die) and LOS issues (you need to be in range & sight of both your offensive target and your defensive target). Tip: There is an assist button (I think the default keybind is F). You just need to target the tank and press F – it will automatically select the offensive target he/she is hitting, ensuring that most of the time you won’t pull any aggro as you will be taking shots on a “tanked” mob.
Rotation
On most fights you will simply use the non specialized build – spam Anima Shot/Burst and use Shot of Anima as needed. You should try go in to the fight with 5 Blood Resources whenever possible (cast your resource builder on yourself to avoid the initial heal aggro).
If things go haywire, you have two options – Shot of Anima if you have some AR resources built up or The Scarlet Arts. You can chain 2x The Scarlet Arts if needed. Cold Blooded and/or Platoon will patch up most group damage.
Heavy party damage: You will be using the AoE healing build. If you can predict an incoming damage to the party member and everyone is clustered together, Blood Pact should be used. If everyone is taking massive damage – Cold Blooded should be cast immediately. Follow it up with Platoon and Mortar Support as needed.
Heavy tank damage: You will be using the tank healing build. There aren’t a lot of fights that are high in tank damage pre-Nightmare so this build won’t be utilized much. Spam Blood Shield, if you can get it to 5 resources without the tank dying, cast Scarlet Arts. If not, try 3 resources for Angelic Aegis. It is is always good to have Blood Resources built up, Use Cold Blooded + Lock & Load + Shot of Anima whenever they are off cooldown.
Discussion
Blood Resource Builders: Ruby Curtain vs Blood Shield vs Linked Veins
Blood Shield has a bigger heal attached to it but weaker shield. At ~2.5k heal rating, where you should be pre-nightmare, Blood Shield heals for 213 and shields for 240 without the passive that increase its effectiveness. Ruby Curtain heals for 85 but shields for 385. Ruby Curtain may sound nice on paper but its shields will be overwritten by bigger shields from abilities like Angelic Aegis. Additionally, you cannot overwrite a stronger shield with a weaker shield – this makes the barriers on Ruby Curtain much less effective. Blood Shield, with its bigger heal amount, will therefore be better to spam.
Linked Veins will require people to be clustered together and doesn’t apply to yourself. There are passives that that apply a weaker barrier to yourself (Vessel Walls, #6 of Venamancy) and hit all party members (Splatter, #4 in Possession). The issue of course is that they will take up two of your passive slots. I personally don’t use this but you may find it useful occasionally.
AR Resource builders: Anima Shot vs Anima Burst
Anima Shot is an instant cast while Anima Burst has 1 second cast time. Anima Burst, as the name implies, it’s a Burst ability, which can synergize well with passives in the Fist weapon healing options (i.e. Healing Sparks). At ~2.5k heal rating, Anima Burst will heal for 253 HP + 73.4% of the damage dealt (deals 60 damage). Anima Shot, on the other hand, will heal for 228 HP + 57.8% of the damage dealt (deals 78 damage). The difference between the two is minimal in terms of healing by themselves. What matters its your playstyle preferences and if you are going to use Anima Burst’s Burst feature to synergize with other weapons/passives. I do have to warn you that using Anima Burst will slow you down while you are casting it. This can be undesirable on certain fights where high mobility is essential to win.
Group Healing: Mortar Support/ Platoon/Blood Pact/ Cold Blooded
Cold Blooded – must have ability. This skill is so good there is absolutely no reason not to use it. While it has a 35 second cooldown, this ability have saved my group more than I can count. This ability will top most DPS and healers from near death to full health + shield. If you plan to run The Facility elite dungeon, this skill is perfect for the fights in there. There are no LOS/range issues with this skill – it will top off all group members no matter where they are. Note: Contrary to the description, you will take absolutely no damage to yourself as the ability will heal you up anyways. I see a lot of people who hesitant about this – it is absolutely safe!
Platoon – While this ability doesn’t heal for much (highest was a crit for 800 HP with ~ 2.2 k heal rating and 60% crit power ) it is still quite nice as a quick heal. It doesn’t have LOS/range issues either. I use it sometimes to heal myself when I am not too careful about Blood Magic usage and use some abilities without resources.
Mortar Support – Sounds great on paper – 20s cooldown, a big heal (can crit for 1.5k with 60% crit power). The reality is that people need to stack together around your defensive target for this to work. A lot of the fights people are running around like headless chickens trying to dodge stuff so trying to heal more than 2 people with it can be hard. It is a TAOE (a 5m AoE around your defensive target).
Blood Pact – Again, look decent on paper. However, this is a PBAOE which means that everyone need to be next to you to receive this. This works great on a couple fights where everyone need to stack together (i.e. the Filth generator in The Facility) but if everyone is scattered around than it can be hard to use it properly.
Group Healing: The Passives
The three passives I use for group healing are Veteran, Anticoagulant, and Leech Therapy. They are not meant to save your group from heavy AoE damage – you have those active AoE heals for that. Instead, those passives are used to give you and your tank a constant tick of incoming heals and heal up any DPSers nearby whom you may not get a chance to heal either due to busy healing the tank or cooldowns on your active AoE heals.
Veteran is quite nice passive heal that you can expect usually every 7 shots of Anima. This heal can crit for as high as 700 (with 60% crit powe) and provide a nice leech effect that allow good DPSers to heal themselves up. On average, if you are just spamming Anima Shot over and over, this heal will proc every 7-8 seconds.
Anticoagulant and Leech Therapy: These two passives pair up together, one is ineffective without the other. This is a constant stream of PBAOE heals (70-120 HP) that come fairly rapidly. I use it mostly to top myself off I don’t get a chance to use Blood shields with the required number of Blood resources. On fights where it is safe to stand next to the tank, the tank can benefit from this as well.
Heavy Tank Healing: Angelic Aegis, The Scarlet Arts and Shot of Anima
On fights with heavy tank damage (i.e. the last boss of Polaris and the Ak’ab boss of Darkness War) Anima Shot/Burst may not be sufficient to keep the tank up. In this case you will need to use Shot of Anima as often as possible and pair it up with shields from Blood Magic. With those fights, I cast the Blood resource builder on myself right before the fight (so I don’t get healing aggro right off the bat if I casted it on the tank instead) so I have 5 Blood Magic resources ready to go. If things get hairy, channeling Scarlet Arts will fix the tank up temporarily.
Scarlet Arts it’s a 4 tick channeled heal (only heals for 3 ticks, the first tick is a shield) that also shields on the first and last tick. This is probably one of the best single target healing there is – 1488 healing + 834 shielding (assuming the first shield is used up) at ~2.5k heal rating assuming no crits. The only downside is that you will need 5 resources to use without the damaging DoT on you. You can chain cast 2x Scarlet Arts if you have 5 Blood Resources – the first cast will be powered by the 5 resources while the second cast will be powered by your health.
Angelic Aegis with the Angel’s Touch passive is very nice if you don’t have the time to build up 5 resources for The Scarlet Arts. This heal is especially effective when the defensive target is <50% as there the passive will make it heal for 1150 and absorb 844 damage. Like Scarlet Arts, you can chain 2x Angelic Aegis if you have at least 3 resources built up.
I use both Angelic Aegis and The Scarlet Arts in this build. This might be puzzling for some people as they are both resource consumers. The Scarlet Arts is nice for emergency healing – the heals ticks in while you cast and each individual tick can crit. Angelic Aegis on the other hand, will take 1.5 seconds for its heal + barrier to land but only cost 3 resources. If you don’t think you will have time to get 5 resources for Scarlet Arts, Angelic Aegis is the way to go but if you have time or tank is near death, Scarlet Arts will come in handy.
As mentioned earlier, you can chain cast two blood barrier abilities if you have the resources built up. The second cast will give you the Blood Offering debuff (7 seconds) that deals quite abit of damage to yourself (~700 HP at 0 resource).The damage depends on how many resources you have. If you have 4/5 resources and used Scarlet Arts, you won’t take as much damage as using it with 0/5 resource. Now you can use the passive Sanguineous to counter some of this damage as you build up more resources. Keep in mind though that Sanguineous only heals you if you actually places a barrier. The barrier from Blood Shield and Ruby Curtain are not strong enough to override the one from Scarlet Arts/Angelic Aegis so they either have to wear off or dissipates from the incoming damage (should not be an issue during heavy tank damage fights). If you are taking too much damage from Blood Offering, a quick Blood Shield or two will top you up. In the worst case scenario, Cold Blooded will heal you back up without hindering your tank healing.
Lock & Load with the Extra Clip passive will allow me to get 5 AR resources right away for a loaded Shot of Anima every 25 seconds to complement the Blood shields.
Shot of Anima I use it with Increased Dosage and the Shadow Medic passives – the leech effect isn’t too useful on the tank but the passives give Shot of Anima a nice boost – it can crit as high as 2.5k HP with 60% crit power.
Coagulation passive, which makes barriers 25% more effective, will come handy here and replace Veteran (they are both passive elites).
Passives that are not useful
Post-Ops: #5 of Support Team in AR – This passive will not work on leech abilities from Anima Shot/Burst (it only works on the leech component of Shot of Anima if you don’t have the Increased Dosage Passive). There is very little reasons to pick it up.
Vessel Walls: #6 of Venamancy The only Chain ability you may get to use its Linked Veins so this skill isn’t very useful at all.
Gear
Generally, you will want to pick up blue items with +Heal Rating on them. These can be obtained in dungeons.In terms of secondary stats, you will want to a decent amount of crit rating and crit power. + Hit rating will allow you avoid glance off mobs but it isn’t too essential (your main heal component of anima shot/burst will still heal their full amount even if you glance).
That being said, it is absolutely essential that you have a tanking talismans as well for the added HP. Having all +heal rating gear is nice but it doesn’t help you survive when you are getting whacked on. Generally, wearing 1 or 2 tanking talisman is sufficient.
Defeating the Gatekeeper
Doing each elite dungeon (there are eight of them) will give you an achievement for it. Once you have all eight achievements, you can do the Gatekeeper fight to gain access to Nightmare mode. This section will cover the mechanics of the fight and the build you need for Gatekeeper.
To access the Gatekeeper fight, you need to take the left portal from Agartha instead of the usual right portal. This will port you to the platform where Gatekeeper resides. You will need to click the right most clicking – it is called Vita if I recall. This will give you the healer version of the fight. The other two are tank and DPS fights.
Contrary to what some people said on the forums, it is perfectly doable as an AR/Blood healer. I did it with all QL 10 blue +heal rating gear (~2.5k heal rating) but you can probably do it for less. You don’t need to use any +HP talisman as you won’t be able to survive the damage if you screw up anyways.
This is the build I used, it is a modification of the heavy tank damage build (Cold Blooded won’t work here. Instead swap it for Tranfuse and Abuse from the Blood Magic Chirurgia line.
Build
Actives
Blood Shield (resource builder)
The Scarlet Arts
Shot of Anima
Tranfuse and Abuse
Anima Shot/Anima Burst
Lock & Load/Platoon
Angelic Aegis
Passives
Anima Boost/Improved Bursts
Increased Dosage
Shadow Medic
Coagulation
Sanguineous
Angel’s Touch
Extra Clip
Strategy
Phase 1
The first part of the fight is just you and your tank friend. It will mimic typical group behaviors and boss fight encounters. The Gatekeeper will hit hard but the damage can be countered by Shot of Anima. If the tank friend’s HP gets a bit too low for comfort, try using Scarlet Arts (make sure you get 5 resources before the fight).
You will get circles placed under you. Make sure that your tank friend doesn’t get any circles!
The goal here is to use the other edges of the platform and never go near your tank friend. Doing so will put the circle under him and kill him! (Took me a couple tries to get it)
Phase 2
At around 40k HP, the Gatekeeper will cast Radiant Charge which will place 3 DoTs on you. Pressing Transfuse and Abuse will take care of them.
Phase 3
At around 18-19k, a couple more “friends” will show up. One of them will mimic a melee DPS who think they can tank and another mimics a fail Ranged DPS. Make sure you have healthbars turned on under your Interface Options. This will help you know who is taking damage. You will need to keep all of them alive until the end of the fight! (if one of them dies, you die!)
Make sure you top off the guy standing in the fire and the melee DPS!
Yes, they will stand in AoEs on purpose and gets knocked down. Just target them individually and heal as necessary. This part wasn’t too bad.
Other resources of interest
Dungeon guides with videos from healer POV