@lawlercopter

Really surprised nobody has commented on this.

You're absolutely right that Dark Surgeon needs major buffs. After playing all kinds of variations, it's not competitive with other healing builds.

To make it competitive with other builds in raids, there needs to be an enchant that increases or uncaps the number of targets that Circle of Healing can heal.

Also, Dark Surgeon needs Renew support to really compete. Currently, healing with Holy Nova feels underwhelming outside of using it to help AoE large pulls so maybe make Holy Nova apply Renew to allies that it hits. And while you're at it, make renew tickrate scale with energy regen increases so stuff like Vitality is buffing it as well as making Adrenaline Rush an awesome healing cooldown for the build.

@WiliemDemon

I don't even know if a buff to your hit/expertise is required. It would make getting into the build easier but I had no problem healing lower keys and such without hit cap. Definitely feels bad to miss or get parried with this build but it was still capable of doing lower keys despite it.

The problem is that once you get better gear to be hit capped, that's when you're doing higher keys and raids and the healing is just not there. The healing itself needs revisions/buffs more than anything else.

@Annatariel

After playing CoJ through Ascended AQ40 and high M+ keys, I personally don't find I have the issues that you have.

I think maintaining the 3 stacks is very forgiving. If your stacks drop before a boss, it takes 1 holy shock on a random person just a few seconds before the pull and then a judge + shock on the boss as you run in and you're back at 3 for the start of the fight. Maintaining the stacks in M+ is extremely easy as you're almost constantly in combat.

I've also never had a single problem with self healing ever. You can just toss yourself an instant flash of light and most of the time, Circle of Healing is all you need. You also can just Beacon yourself.

Speaking of Beacon, I don't even use the RE to extend the time as I feel like 1 global per minute during a fight is not a big deal at all... Sometimes I also just drop Beacon if I need other utility like Aspect of the Pack or something in a key as it's not that impactful.

@WiliemDemon

Yes I understand now, thanks

I agree that it doesn't need to do Seed of Life level healing but if they want people to bring it to higher end content, then it needs to be capable of healing it effectively.

Dark Surgeon in its current state does such little HPS and has such difficulty keeping people alive in high (20+) keys and Ascended raids that nobody wants one in their group.

The issue is that:

1. You're required to be in melee which opens you up to the risk of stuns, disarms, silences, and gouges.

2. You have no blanket healing meaning that when you aren't able to constantly generate combo points for any given reason, you fall behind and people die. Your only big spot heal (instant Greater Heal) requires you to prep 3 stacks and again, if you're behind on building stacks, someone is dead.

3. Your main AoE heals don't target more than 5 players at a time, making it inherently terrible at healing raids. Holy Nova does terrible healing numbers and also doesn't heal people who are out of range.

So my question is, how is Dark Surgeon supposed to keep people alive with these drawbacks? The answer is that it can't. I don't expect it to have Seed of Life level throughput. It doesn't need to. It just needs to be more reliable.

@WiliemDemon

Sorry I don't understand your English

@WiliemDemon

I don't even know if a buff to your hit/expertise is required. It would make getting into the build easier but I had no problem healing lower keys and such without hit cap. Definitely feels bad to miss or get parried with this build but it was still capable of doing lower keys despite it.

The problem is that once you get better gear to be hit capped, that's when you're doing higher keys and raids and the healing is just not there. The healing itself needs revisions/buffs more than anything else.

@lawlercopter

Really surprised nobody has commented on this.

You're absolutely right that Dark Surgeon needs major buffs. After playing all kinds of variations, it's not competitive with other healing builds.

To make it competitive with other builds in raids, there needs to be an enchant that increases or uncaps the number of targets that Circle of Healing can heal.

Also, Dark Surgeon needs Renew support to really compete. Currently, healing with Holy Nova feels underwhelming outside of using it to help AoE large pulls so maybe make Holy Nova apply Renew to allies that it hits. And while you're at it, make renew tickrate scale with energy regen increases so stuff like Vitality is buffing it as well as making Adrenaline Rush an awesome healing cooldown for the build.