Allods Online Forum

Hey, my name's Laela and I am from the guild WarSong I am a Priest and have been playing this class since day 1 :3 I usually play the role of Full Healer, but since 5.0 I have taken on the role of DPS too

In the Heart of the World patch there was A LOT of changes to our class. To be more specific, Caster Healer was entirely reworked. In the previous patch I really did not enjoy melee healer. It is just not fun for me >.< Even then I had a Caster spec as my 2nd build, however the DPS was absolutely abysmal. No matter how hard I'd try, the Caster just did not give as much as the Melee healer. The cast time of Celestial Judgement was very long, even with the cast time reduction rubies, and Frenzy procs were just far too random. However, it has all changed now and Caster Healers can easily top the DPS meter. Now it's our turn to shine!

So, why should you choose Caster Healer?

1. It is very good long-range DPS. We can stand 40 yards away, and even extend it to 55 yards through rubies.
   
2. It has a lot of survivability. Healers wear plate armour so we are not as squishy as Mages. We can also DPS while using Holy Shield, unlike Melee healer, and we have more healing capabilities than Melee.
   
3. We can take a lot of control abilities. We have Blind, Silence, Knockdown, Slow, Stunlock, and even an AoE Fear These will be incredibly useful in PvP and particularly Dominion if you know how to use them well

In this guide I will explain the basics of Caster Healer and provide a PvE DPS build, as well as some tips on Stats and PvP.

Part 1: What's Changed?

Well, where to start? Caster Healer was completely reworked. The most important change is that Frenzy has become an activated skill. Previously Frenzy had a chance to appear when you casted Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement. It would last for a minimum of 3 seconds and allowed you to cast Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement instantly at 70% less mana cost. You could increase the chance of Frenzy appearing by stacking Unbridled Wrath when you casted Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement. Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement also had a chance to remove Frenzy when casting them. All of this meant that Frenzy was very unpredictable, and your DPS would vary dramatically depending on how lucky you were with your Frenzy procs.
Now that Frenzy is an activated skill we have full control of when we can use it This is a wonderful change! The Unbridled Wrath rubies have also been changed so that they reduce the cooldown of Frenzy. At Rank 3 Frenzy has a 1 minute cooldown, but it is more like 30 seconds on average with the reduction from Unbridled Wrath. This change means our rotation has changed a little, and our DPS is boosted. No more waiting desperately for Frenzy to proc

The new Crusade rubies are also good. They give a nice 15% damage boost to Chain of Light and Particle of Light, but make you unable to cast them without Fanaticism. This is a good thing. I used to hate it when I was trying to spam through my fanaticisms and accidentally pressed too many and got stuck casting Particle for 3 seconds. Now these rubies stop that from happening, and the damage boost is too good to miss.

The Blessed Resolution rubies were also changed. Instead of increasing your critical damage, they now reduce the cooldown time of Heavenly Smite by 3 seconds when you cast Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement. This means you can cast Smite, go into Frenzy and spam Blast/Judgement, and once your Frenzy is over you will be ready to cast Smite again These should not be skipped as Heavenly Smite has been given a huge 75% increase to its damage. The more we can cast it, the better

Caster Healers also gained access to a few rubies that were previously reserved for Melee Healers. Now the Execution and Executioner rubies in the Verdict grid also apply to Holy Blast and Celestial Judgement. The Execution rubies now give Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement a 35% chance to inflict extra Lightning damage, and the Executioner rubies increase the damage of Holy Blast and Celestial Judgement by 30% when your target's health is below 30%, as well as a 9% boost to your Lightning damage (more Smite damage ).

Those who enjoy PvP will also be pleasantly surprised. The ruby Exorcism now works like Sacred Word against players who you mark with Blast/Judgement. If you have taken both Willpower rubies, then when you cast Blast/Judgement on a target they will be "declared a demon" and Sacred Word, and now Exorcism, will work on them. Exorcism will be fun to use in Dominion when you are capturing points. Just cast Frenzy, tab target and spam all your opponents with Celestial Judgement, and then cast Exorcism and watch them run in fear! hehehehe :3

And to top it all off, literally ALL of the Caster Healer's damage skills were boosted, as well as a new 10% increase to all Holy Damage when in Aspect of Light

Part 2: My PvE Caster DPS Build

This is an all round Caster DPS build for PvE. It works well in astral, for farming and in raiding This is the build I am currently using.



I know, I know, you just came here for a build You can skip the details about Talents and Rubies, however if you do read them you will actually understand the class much better and you'll be able to construct a suitable build for any situation. As the saying goes, give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime

What Should You Take First?

You should get Aspect of Light as soon as you can while levelling, and take Particle of Light and Heavenly Smite. You should max Holy Blast and Particle first as they will make up most of your damage, and Chain of Light if you like to pull a lot of mobs at once while levelling. For rubies, start off with Unbending Will to get more Fanaticisms and then the stat rubies. Then take Blaze of Faith in the Cleansing Flame tree, and start working towards the Frenzy rubies in the Holy Blast tree. After this you can start to pad out the Holy Blast tree for more DPS. Holy Shield and Perpetual Healing will give you more survivability while levelling too.

Talents

Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement
This is your main DPS skill. This is the one you will spam most. These should both be Rank 3 in any Caster Build.

Verdict/Anathema
These are melee DPS skills and are not required in a Caster build. Skip them both and throw Verdict off your action bar.

Cleansing Flame
This is a damage over time spell which will be important for increasing your overall Holy Damage. This should be Rank 2 or 3 if you have plenty of talent points.

Particle of Light
A powerful single-target spell. Can be cast instantly by using Fanaticisms. This should always be Rank 3 in any Healer DPS build.

Devoted Plea/Refreshing Light
These are optional skills. I like Devoted Plea as it is a spammable heal with a low mana cost and no cooldown. I have Devoted Plea Rank 2 in my build.

Master of Aspects
This is one of the most important talents in the Healer's tree. This gives you access to the different Aspects. There are 3 Aspects.

• Aspect of Light (Rank 1) - The Caster Aspect. Gives you a chance to receive Fanaticisms when casting Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement and stops them being interrupted by damage.
  
• Aspect of Mercy (Rank 2) - The Healer Aspect. Gives you a chance to receive Fanaticisms when you or your party members receive damage. Allows you to cast certain heals without being interrupted and removes the cooldown from others.
  
• Aspect of Rage (Rank 3) - The Melee Aspect. Gives you a chance to receive Fanaticisms when you use Verdict/Anathema and increases your Anger by 15.

For Caster Healer you only need Rank 1, however you may also like to take Rank 2 for better offhealing in critical situations, or for farming on packs of mobs.

Heavenly Smite
You can take this to Rank 2 or 3. Smite is now massive damage, and with the Blessed Resolution rubies you can cast it every 10-15 seconds As a bonus, it's an AoE and knocks your enemies down.

Holy Shield
Holy Shield, aka Bubble, is an absolute life-saver. Don't skip Bubble! This will save your behind on multiple occasions. At Rank 3 it has a 3m cooldown, which can be reduced even further with rubies for PvP.

Blind Faith
This skill is entirely optional. I have taken it because I like to have a few CCs in my builds. At Rank 2 the cooldown is 1m compared with 3m at Rank 1. It is useful for distracting mobs if you or an errant mage agro something by over-DPSing If you are thinking about going into PvP, rank 2 or 3 is preferable.

Perpetual Healing
This will be your main heal. It's a good periodic heal and you can boost it's crit rate and length with rubies. It is instant cast so you can just pop it on quick and get back to DPSing

Chain of Light
This is the AoE version of Particle of Light. It hops between enemies up to 5 times. This should always be rank 3.

Holy Rage
Skip this. It's a melee attack that we have no use for.

Divine Prayer
This is an alternative option to Devoted Plea for a heal. It provides a bigger heal, however it costs a lot of mana, and has 50s cooldown in Aspect of Light. I prefer Devoted Plea as I can spam it as much as I need.

Purification
You should always take Rank 1 Purification minimum. Sometimes using a puri can save you mana on healing, or in the case of certain debuffs, stop you or your party being feared, poisoned, burnt alive, etc etc. At rank 1 it has a 10s cooldown. This is plenty as it's not your job to purify everyone. It is a personal/emergency puri.

Holy Rejuvenation/Holy Healing
I have chosen to take this as my big emergency heal. With fanaticism it can be cast instantly, however it does have a a 1 minute cooldown. I very rarely use it, so I have left it at rank 1.

Aura of Astral Power
Gives +15% to all magical damage done by you and your party, but cuts your healing by 50%. Good for PvE and should be rank 3. In PvP you can skip it as you will want as much healing as possible. Let the Mages give you it in PvP.

Binding Light
This is a control effect that looks good on paper, but is not so good in practice. It will periodically paralyse a target for a few seconds however this paralysis is broken by any damage. In PvE it is not a constant cc and would be broken by any AoE your group uses. In PvP there is too much AoE going around everywhere that the paralysis effect will also be constantly broken. It is not really worth putting any talents into.

Providence
This is very good burst damage, particularly useful on bigger mobs and bosses. It will apply stacks on the target that are removed when they receive damage. It will cause damage to enemies, and heal allies. This is a good skill due to the choice in heal/dps. When you are in a group, your groups damage will also cause the stacks to inflict damage to the target so the stacks will be consumed very fast with very little effort from you. This skill consumes Tears of Dragon. Higher quality tears will result in higher damage/healing. For DPS you should take this skill to Rank 3.

Faith Boundaries
This is another optional skill. It is useful if you or that pesky mage agro again It will provide protection for a short time, and knock the enemy down. It should give your healer a couple of seconds extra to heal you It also consumes Tears of Dragon.

Ruby Grid 1: Holy Blast

This is primarily the Caster tree. You should take almost every ruby in this tree

Unshakeable Faith
With all 4 (there are 3 in the Cleansing Flame grid too) it gives you +12 to Proficiency. An important stat ruby that should not be skipped in any build!

Crusade
Increase the damage of Chain of Light and Particle of Light by 15%, but you won't be able to use them without Fanaticism. These rubies give a nice damage boost so don't skip them.

Power of the Pure
Increases the damage of all your Holy spells by 9%. This boosts all of the Caster's damage except for Heavenly Smite and Cleansing Flame. It also boosts all your Heals by 9%.

Angelic Grace
Reduces the mana cost of ALL your spells by 5/10/15%. I have only taken it at Rank 1 to use it as a bridge to Holy Flame. Although mana rubies are very useful, you will get more and more mana as your weapon improves and if you keep a good supply of mana pots and restoration potions then you should be fine for mana

Holy Flame
Gives 15% more damage to Holy Blast and Celestial Judgement. These are your main damage skills so this is a vital ruby, plus it leads the way to arguably the most important Caster ruby of them all, Frenzy.

Frenzy
This is by far the most important 3 rubies you can take as a Caster. For 8 seconds you will be able to instantly cast Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement, for 70% less mana cost.

Heavenly Miracle
Reduces the cast time of Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement by 30%. That's from 2s to 1.2s. It is a small difference, but when you are casting this spell almost constantly it does add up. These rubies are less vital though and may be dropped if you don't have so many rubies.

Inevitable Punishment
Increases the damage of Heavenly Smite and Chain of Light by 15% and stops them from being interrupted when you receive damage. Very useful rubies.

Light's Generosity
Increases the damage of Particle of Light by 18%. Another important ruby for any DPS build.

Righteous Fervor
Increases the critical strike chance of Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement and Devoted Plea/Refreshing Light by 15%. In this patch, when we have only 5% Luck to start with, crit rubies make a big difference to your DPS.

Unbridled Wrath
While in combat you have a 25% chance to receive Unbridled Wrath every 2 seconds. These rubies are so important! They will cut the cooldown of Frenzy in half. These are an absolute must-have in a Caster build.

Blessed Resolution
Each cast of Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement reduces the cooldown of Heavenly Smite by 3 seconds. Another ruby that people underestimate. With this ruby you can cast Smite, then Frenzy, and when Frenzy has finished (after 8s) your Smite will be ready again

Other notes:

Light's Reach
This ruby will boost your range up to 55 yards. You don't need this. Not in PvE anyway. On allods you never stand that far away from mobs, in raids there isn't normally that much room to stand 55 yards away, and when you're farming the mobs are in close range anyway. Plus you do not want to drift out of the range of your healer. For PvP these rubies may be useful as you will be able to kite outside of people's range, particularly as they cause Holy Blast, Celestial Judgement and Particle of Light to slow the target by 30%. However, for PvP with closer combat such as Dominion, you would be much better off taking defensive rubies as you will receive a lot of damage there.

Deep Concentration
Reduces the cooldown of Holy Shield, and the cooldown and mana cost of switching aspects. This is a very good ruby for PvP. Love your Bubble, it is your best friend in PvP. I skipped it as it is not so vital in PvE because you shouldn't be taking a lot of damage.

Disciple's Reward
Increases your magic resistance and armour by 30% when your health drops below 50%. Another good one for PvP. Not essential in PvE.

Ruby Grid 2: Verdict

This is primarily the Melee healer tree, however there are a few rubies that Casters have gained access to with the 5.0 patch.

Unbending Will
Increases the chance to receive Fanaticism by 15%. More Fanaticism = more Particle/Chain of Light = more DPS

Executioner
NEW! This ruby previously only worked for Melee healer skills, but now it also applies to Caster's Holy Blast and Celestial Judgement! It increases the damage of your Holy Blast and Celestial Judgement by 30% when your target's health drops below 30%. It also increases your Lightning damage by 9% (hello Heavenly Smite :3).

Execution
NEW! This was another Melee-only ruby. Now it will give a 25% chance to add extra Lightning damage to your Holy Blast and Celestial Judgement. This is not an essential ruby, but it can add a nice bit of extra damage. Take it if you have a lot of rubies.

Exorcism
This is another optional ruby. As I said previously, I like to have a few controls in my builds. Although I am normally healing in PvP, if I was to go in DPS build I would love to wreak havoc on my enemies in Dominion by fearing them all away from our flags every 40 seconds To use this on other players you must take both Valiant Guardian rubies in the Cleansing Flame tree. Then just cast Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement on those players while in Aspect of Light, cast Exorcism and enjoy :3 *cue the evil laugh*

Other notes:

Divine Instincts
Increases your Vitality by 15. Useful for a HP boost in PvP, not essential for PvE.

Ray of Hope
Increases your healing received by 30% when your health drops below 50%. Only works in Aspect of Light and Aspect of Rage. Another good one for more survivability in PvP.

Hold in Contempt
Another control effect. Silences the target for 6 seconds and prevents them from casting spells. Has a 1 minute cooldown. It's nice for PvP, not needed in PvE.

Divine Punishment
Reduces the cooldown of Binding Light, Hold in Contempt and Exorcism by 30%. Good if you like to use a lot of CC in PvP.

The rest of the rubies in this grid are for Melee healer and we can ignore them

Ruby Grid 3: Cleansing Flame

This is mainly the Healer tree, but there are a few important rubies not to be missed here too.

Blaze of Faith
Each tick of Cleansing Flame has a 40% chance to apply 3 buffs on the target that increase the damage of a Holy attack by 15%. Almost all of your damage is Holy, so this is a big boost to your DPS. These buffs will keep stacking up and provide an almost constant 15% boost to your DPS.

Illuminated Mind
Increases your Vigor by 9%. An important stat ruby for all builds.

Valiant Guardian
Increases your Willpower by 8 and at rank 2 it will cause Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement to apply a mark on the target that will allow you to use Sacred Word and Exorcism on them. If you want Exorcism to work on players you must take both of these.

Divine Foresight
A nice backup heal for only 1 ruby. It can save your life from being 1 shot. If you have enough rubies, take it.

Eternal Fire
Each tick of Cleansing Flame has a 30% chance to apply Eternal Fire which renews the effect and increases its damage by 10%, stackable up to 5 times. It also increase the duration of Perpetual Healing (your main heal in Caster build) by 30%. This ruby will save you a lot of mana by not having to cast Cleansing Flame as often, as well as increasing the damage of the DoT that should be on your opponents for the entirety of combat by up to 50%. These are good rubies to take.

Enlightenment
Increases your Determination by 3/6/9. I have taken it only rank 1 to reach Divine Infusion. For PvE you will not need Determination as you should be far from mobs and receive little damage normally. For PvP Determination is much more important and you should take all 3 of these rubies. I will go into more detail about the stats later on in the guide.

Divine Infusion
Increases the critical strike chance of Cleansing Flame and Perpetual healing by 10/20/30%. If I had one more ruby I would take this to Rank 3. Increased chance to crit makes a huge difference with the new stat system.

Other notes:

I have skipped Entreaty as you shouldn't need so much healing in PvE. In PvP it is a good, cheap and decent heal with instant cast and a short cooldown. You can reach it through the Determination rubies. I skipped the mana rubies for the same reasons as stated for Angelic Grace. The other rubies are all related to healing and we can ignore them

Part 3: What About Stats?

The new stats may seem quite confusing at first, but they're not so difficult to understand!
The most important stat is Vigor. This will be your base damage. The only way you can change this stat is through getting better gear, and rubies.
Out of the stats you can change, Proficiency and Brutality will be the most important. Proficiency just increases your damage, Brutality increases it the lower your target's health is. Mathematically the optimum stat distribution for maximum DPS is half in Proficiency and half in Brutality. Though in raids, if you are against bosses that Enrage at the end of the fight, you may want to increase Brutality slightly to finish them off faster when things are most difficult.

But what about Determination? Well, this is an interesting stat that is not so easy to calculate. Determination increases your damage when you are being attacked. Well, as a Caster Healer of course you should be stood far away from enemies and not be receiving damage. In this case, Determination is useless. However, it's not always so simple. In raids there may often be a lot of AoE, in astral there can be AoE, fire on the ground, poison clouds etc etc. So what do we do then? To calculate the ideal stat distribution, first you need to know your average amount of Determination for the whole fight. You can use the wonderful addon AoUMeter for this. Next do a couple of fights and check your average Determination level. If it is above 30-40 then great! put some stats into Determination. If not, then you can skip this stat entirely for PvE. The higher your average Determination, the more stats you should put in it.

And for defensive stats? Well, personally I quite like Bloodlust. As I deal a lot of damage, Bloodlust provides a continuous stream of small heals to help me survive if I take damage. The addon AoUMeter will show you the healing done through Bloodlust if you have the latest version, and the heals are not bad

You may also be curious about PvP stats. Now, these are entirely dependent on the type of PvP. For large scale PvP such as Arena, the Caster Healer should hide at the back in the hopes of receiving less damage. Here I would stack as much Proficiency as possible to burst down my enemies very fast. (Think of Mages one-shotting people with their Icy Comets, we will do the same with our Heavenly Smite ) We want to hit as much damage as possible on the first hit, so Proficiency will help us the most here.
For Dominion, it is much smaller PvP and you will probably take a lot of damage, thus raising your Determination levels to 100 a lot of the time. Here you should put as much points as possible into Determination. For defensive stats I would suggest a lot of Willpower, around 15+ Tenacity to help protect you from Wound Complexity, and Vitality so that you are a bit more tanky.

Part 4: The Rotation

Well, now you have a build, and some stats, so how do you actually go about playing as a Caster Healer? The rotation is pretty simple Be prepared to hammer certain hotkeys, as Caster Healer is all about spamming Celestial Judgement. My rotation is as follows:

First make sure you have Aspect of Light active.

1. Start the fight with Cleansing Flame. This will begin to build Blaze of Faith stacks that will boost your Holy Damage.
   
2. Use Heavenly Smite.
   
3. Activate Frenzy.
   
4. Spam Celestial Judgement. This will give you Fanaticisms and reduce the cooldown of Heavenly Smite.
   
   • When you receive a stack of Fanaticism, use Particle of Light if single target, or Chain of Light if multiple targets.
     
   
   
5. Heavenly Smite should be ready to cast again after Frenzy.
   
6. Repeat Step 4, casting Frenzy and Smite as soon as they are ready. Don't forget to refresh your Cleansing Flame.
   

When fighting a large monster, or a boss you can also use Providence for a nice burst.
Part 5: Random Useful Stuff that Doesn't Fit Anywhere Else

Weapons

For weapons in PvE you can use any 2 handed. You are only using it for stats and mana, and you won't be hitting things with it, so you can use a Staff, 2h Spear or 2h Mace. For PvP you can use a 1h Weapon (either 1h Mace or 1h Spear) and a Shield for more defence. It won't affect your damage in any way, unlike Melee Healers, however you will have less mana. Here Mana potions, Restoration potions and Warden's Balm will be your best friend .

Recommended Reincarnation Skills

Adrenaline Rush - Warrior
Restores mana 3 times faster for 10 seconds. We use a lot of mana so this can be useful when your potions and Martyr skill is on cooldown. Particularly good for long boss fights and in raids.

Flash - Mage
Allows you to instantly teleport 25 meters forward. Good for kiting in PvP.

Part 6: To Conclude

Caster Healer is a lot of fun, and easy to learn. Thanks to the changes in update 5.0 it is now viable as a DPS spec, and it has given Caster Healer a whole new lease of life. I enjoy Caster Healer as I can deal a lot of DPS without having to charge in like a brute with a huge hammer :3 In PvP I can kite out of people's range while still inflicting damage, and by using Frenzy I can be fully mobile while continuing to deal damage. In Dominion I can be wicked with control effects, throwing Knockdowns, Blinds, Silences, and Fears every which way. Now my class is very fun to play, and I finally enjoy playing as DPS!

Thankyou for reading this far! I hope this guide helps people to understand the new Caster Healer. If anyone wants any advice or tips on Caster or Healers in general (but not really Melee Healer), feel free to message me in game



P.S. If you're still not convinced, here's a final DPS shot from a routine guild run through Tep's Taken from the fight with Sihal. The new Caster is OP!

Quoted from "8rockx"

Nice guide. I was still uncertain about some rubies and what they do now since 5.0 ,but this helped me. Ty

Thanks I'm glad it helped.

Quoted from "Hilver"

Awesome guide!I actually intended to make my reincarnation a caster healer and this seems quite helpful.It would be appreciated though if you can add a section for recommended rubies and talents and what to get first specially since you have kinda many rubies and also to make sure what to pick first while leveling.I understand one might understand priority talents and rubies through the description you made for every talent and ruby but I guess there would still be some confusion..Thanks!

Thankyou I have updated it with a brief section on what to go for first.

Quoted from "1aussieonly"

As a PvE build, the build suggested feels very suboptimal. Talent and ruby allocation should be amended to maximise the DPS.

Would you like to expand on this? I have maxed all the Caster DPS talents so I'm not sure how you can take more DPS from there, and I have only skipped 2 sets of rubies that would possibly boost damage. I skipped Inquisitor as it's a 9% boost only on those who use mana, which is very few creatures in PvE, and Surge of Faith as it will only boost Cleansing Flame by 15% which is nothing compared to the possible 50% boost of Eternal Fire or the 30% extra crit from Divine Infusion. How would you amend it for more DPS?

Thanks Welby and Windstorm

Shikari, unlike you, I don't have a Fountain of Death so that I can have a gajillion builds for every situation imaginable. This build is primarily for PvE, but it can cross over into PvP too, hence why I have taken the ccs. In PvP my role is normally full healer, but on the rare occasions where I do dps the extra cc is nice to have.

Quoted from "1aussieonly"

That is understandable. In which case, you may wish to state that in your guide and why you made such selections so people reading this do not feel it is the most optimal DPS Caster Healer build available?

Maybe you did and I missed it

Yep, you missed it.

Quoted from "Laela"

Exorcism
This is another optional ruby. As I said previously, I like to have a few controls in my builds. Although I am normally healing in PvP, if I was to go in DPS build I would love to wreak havoc on my enemies in Dominion by fearing them all away from our flags every 40 seconds To use this on other players you must take both Valiant Guardian rubies in the Cleansing Flame tree. Then just cast Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement on those players while in Aspect of Light, cast Exorcism and enjoy :3 *cue the evil laugh*

Quoted from "Laela"

Valiant Guardian
Increases your Willpower by 8 and at rank 2 it will cause Holy Blast/Celestial Judgement to apply a mark on the target that will allow you to use Sacred Word and Exorcism on them. If you want Exorcism to work on players you must take both of these.