Hello everybody, long time forum stalker here and a TES player since Morrowind. So I have become very interested in how this game turns out as it looks like an MMO I would actually enjoy. There are many problems with other MMOs; however, I always enjoy healing people in these games. But in single player RPGs, I enjoy making a super survivable character which usually involves sneak, archery, heavy armor, and restoration. Its a weird mix but I'm hard to kill even on master level.

So my question is this, I have been reading on the templar skills and it seems that many of the heals are AoE. Any thoughts on how well these AoE heals will work if I am sniping from behind me allies?

Bonus question: I want to make 1 character for each faction but my main will definitely be working for the Ebonheart faction. The problem is, my two favorite races, Nord and Dunmer, are both in this faction. Who would you choose for an archer healer?

We dont know whats range on AOE heals, at least you can backup when you're shooting with bow and go forward when using heals. But the thing is you can switch weapons in combat too.. so one set can be one-handed + shield, one could be staff of restoration etc and one bow. Whatever works for that situation. SO yeah, its kinda pointless to choose only one weapon.

Sniping isn't really the word I'd use, but yeah. Shooting arrows and healing people works fine. The AoE emanates from you, just get a bit closer to your allies to heal, if it is ground targetable, just mash it on the highest concentration of allies (or most needy allies).

On race:

whichever. If you mean of Nord and Dunmer, it really doesn't matter. Their reported racials dpn't affect any of the skill trees you care about, so it makes no difference. A few others might, going by the basic design principles (other races likely have other weapon tree advancement bonuses), but for those skills, meh. Just doesn't really matter much.

I have to agree that neither race has much in the way of racial skills for my idea so really what I am asking is, which to you looks more like an archer templar?

And so far it is looking like an archer healer could be possible which would make me happy. May go with medium armor instead of my usual heavy as the heavy looks more melee orientated. Any ideas what medium armor looks like in this game? Haven't seen any pictures as of yet.

Thank you all for your quick answers.

Loving how this game is looking so far.

Medium Armor is basically "leather" looking armor, although there are a ton of varieties of what THAT could look like. Oh, and heavy armor is primarily for protection whereas medium armor (from what we have seen) offers benefits to sneaking and stamina usage (like powering your weapon attacks).

As for Nord/Dunmer looking like a healing archer... I can easily picture a Nord archer with a bow covered with fur and twigs and such, creeping through the snow in white furs with wolf-ear helmet, etc plinking arrows at foes and then calling on her ancestors to heal an ally with magical powers (or swapping in a Resto staff)...

But I can also picture a Dunmer slinking through the shadows in black leather armor with dull silver buckles with a slick mahogony bow carved with family runes using magical knowledge to heal allies... actually, I tend to not think of Dunmer as healers --- they always seem so self-interested and, well, mean. Even their character creator pictures (publicly released video) seem like they're angry about something.

To each his own, though.