Top 10 Most Powerful Healer Sets in ESO

Today we will be examining the top ten best sets for healers in the Elder Scrolls Online. This will be focused on PvE healers, as PvP is a completely different game in terms of what kinds of effects are the most valuable. This list will not contain monster sets, mythic items or arena weapons - it will be focused only on 5-piece item sets. 

If you're looking to get into healing for the first time or you're coming back after a long break, and you aren't sure which sets to focus on getting, then this is the perfect page for you. We will try to examine the pros and cons of each set.

The Worm's Raiment is a set that healers have been using in ESO for most of the game's history, and it can still be useful today. It is a Light Armor set which is solely focused on buffing the magicka recovery of your team, including yourself and up to 11 group members. The set applies its effect constantly, making it very simple to use and ideal if you want an easy way off improving your team's Magicka sustain. If your group has a lot of stamina players or is already having an easy time sustaining though, you will probably want to use something else. 

It's actually more common for tanks to run this set nowadays because there are a lot of newer healer sets that are quite powerful, but a healer running it still isn't unheard of and it's worth having it in your “toolbox” so to speak. 

You can get this set from the Vaults of Madness which is a base game dungeon, meaning no DLCs are required. 

Gossamer is a highly situational healer set. Whenever you heal yourself or an ally, you grant them Major Evasion, reducing their damage taken from AOE damage by a very substantial 20%. The duration of the effect is only 1 second, but it has no cooldown. This means that you need to be constantly keeping AOE heals on your group to keep the buff on them. 

This is a set that won't be used by the very top echelon of players in ESO, but in some dungeons and trials it can be excellent for carrying a less experienced group. The hardmodes of [Maw of Lorkaj] and Kyne's Aegis are two very good examples that come to my mind - the group takes a lot of AOE damage here and reducing this by 20% can make you the unsung hero by helping people to stay alive. 

The Gossamer set drops in Cradle of Shadows, a dungeon in the Shadows of the Hist DLC. 

While The Worm's Raiment is good for buffing a group's Magicka sustain, Hollowfang Thirst outperforms it by a huge margin. In ideal conditions it will grant your team over double the extra Magicka that Worm's does. 

Unlike worm's, the set does need to be activated to give its benefit, but doing this is very easy. Critically healing an ally (or critically damaging an enemy) will spawn a blood orb that restores 1750 Magicka to everyone standing close to it after 2 seconds. It also gives them Minor Vitality which is a small buff to their healing received. You can do this every 9  seconds. 

One funny thing to keep in mind with this set is that less experienced players can actually mistake the blood orb for an enemy AOE, so if you notice that people in your group are running away from it then you might want to explain that it's actually there to help them. 

If your group is lacking Magicka sustain then this is a great set to help with that. 

The Hollowfang Thirst set drops from Moongrave Fane, a dungeon in the Scalebreaker DLC. 

Stone-Talker's Oath is another sustain-buffing set, and this one is the strongest of them all. You use it by heavy attacking an enemy. After 10 seconds, 5% of the damage that the enemy took will be distributed to your group as magicka and stamina. This means that Stone-Talker's is the strongest set for buffing Magicka sustain, while also doing the same for Stamina. 

It's slightly more finicky to use as you need to remember to do a heavy attack every 10 seconds or so, but that's hardly difficult to get into the habit of doing. 

If you want a set for your healer that can do wonders for the sustain of any group that you play with, then I definitely recommend grabbing Stone-Talker's. 

You can get Stone-Talker's Oath from Rockgrove, a trial in the Blackwood expansion. Doing the trial on Veteran difficulty will instead drop Perfected Stone-Talker's Oath which grants you extra max magicka. But this is minor, so don't worry if you can't get that yet. 

Z'en's Redress is one of the most difficult sets for a healer to use, as you need to put five damage over time effects on enemies to make full use of it. If the healer is a beginner, then the set fits much more easily on a Magicka Dragonknight. 

The value in a healer running the set is that the DPS players then only need to focus on staying alive and doing damage, and it works best in situations when one of the healers doesn't have to do much actual healing, such as the front kite position in Asylum Sanctorium. 

If you're able to make full use of this set then you will be putting a 5% damage vulnerability on bosses, which is also unique meaning it can be stacked with similar effects from other sources. 

This one definitely isn't for beginners, but if you want to try the set on your healer then you can get it from Lair of Maarselok, a dungeon in the Scalebreaker DLC. 

Spell Power Cure is another healer set that's been in the game for most of ESO's history. It is a very easy set to use and grants a fairly powerful buff to your team. 

When you overheal an ally (In simple terms, heal them when they are already at full health) you will also give them the Major Courage buff for 5 seconds, increasing their weapon and spell damage by 430. 

This is a sizable buff and it's pretty much a no brainer to have a reliable source of it in your group. This set is one of your two options for providing Major Courage. 

This set drops from the White-Gold Tower, a dungeon in the Imperial City DLC. 

Vestment of Olorime is the other set that grants a reliable source of Major Courage to your group. Whenever you cast an ability on the ground, you will leave a circle there that grants Major Courage to allies in the circle for 20 seconds. You can create a circle every 10 seconds. 

In theory this is slightly better than Spell Power Cure because it removes the overheal requirement, so your team can still get the buff if they aren't at full health (especially useful in the execute phase of Cloudrest when the team is periodically drained of their health and targeted with a massive healing debuff). 

However, in situations where the team is not tightly stacked for most of the fight you should use Spell Power Cure instead, because the circle from Vestment of Olorime just won't be big enough to cover everyone in these situations. 

You can get this set from Cloudrest, a trial in the Summerset DLC. The Veteran version of Cloudrest drops Perfected Vestment of Olorime instead, but only on the last boss. This just grants some extra maximum Magicka, so don't worry if you can't get it yet. 

Jorvuld's Guidance makes for a very well-rounded healer set, giving you a lot of extra Magicka Recovery and increasing your healing output by 4% just for wearing the set. In addition, the duration of all major and minor buffs and damage shields applied to allies is increased by 40%, which turns you into a buff machine. 

This set is so good because it just has amazing synergy with so many of your set options and skills. The most powerful synergy that this set has will be explained later in this article. 

You can obtain Jorvuld's Guidance from Scalecaller Peak, a dungeon in the Dragon Bones DLC.

Way of Martial Knowledge also featured in our Top 10 tank sets article. It gets a higher ranking for healers because it's less risky for healers to use it. 

To make use of the set, you need to make sure that your stamina is below 50% of its maximum value, and then do a light attack on the enemy. This will apply a very significant 8% damage weakness on the enemy for 5 seconds, and you can do this once every 8 seconds. 

The debuff is unique, meaning it can be stacked with other sets that do similar things, such as Z'en's Redress, as well as the non-unique debuffs like Minor Vulnerability. 

Using this set on a healer takes a bit of getting used to - you will want to drain your stamina by dodge rolling so that you can apply the debuff. This obviously means that you will have less time to cast healing abilities though, so it takes some practice and isn't for beginners. It's definitely easier to use than Z'en's Redress though and gives a bigger payoff too. 

Way of Martial Knowledge is an overland set that drops in Craglorn. No DLCs are required to get it. 

Roaring Opportunist is our pick for the most powerful healer set in the Elder Scrolls Online right now, and that's because it is by far the most reliable source of the Major Slayer buff, which increases your team's damage against dungeon and trial monsters by 10%. You simply need to do a heavy attack to grant the effect to 6 group members, and if you're in a large group then do another one to apply it to the remaining group members. By default the maximum duration is 12 seconds and the cooldown is 22 seconds per ally.

The duration is based on your spell damage and maximum magicka, so make sure these values are high. Since the set requires regular heavy attacking, you don't need to run as much magicka recovery as usual, so you can push for more spell damage. Even when you manage to get to 12 seconds duration, there is a considerable down time on the Major Slayer effect. However, that problem can be fixed by combining the set with Jorvuld's Guidance which increases the maximum duration to around 17 seconds. If you have seen the term “RoJo healer”, then this combination is what that term refers to. 

This combo is extremely common, very powerful and highly sought after in most organized groups. 

We hope you enjoyed this article about healers in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). ESO is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.