SEASON 8 PVE
Orb of Protection
Beacon
Sacred Ground
Items
Items used in this build are just examples of good perk combinations you can use. There may be multiple Named Item alternatives, or you might find something similar on the Trading Post—or even get lucky with drops from mobs or chests. You can find all viable alternatives on websites like NWBuddy or NWDB.
Once you reach level 65, focus on increasing your faction level. At max faction rank, you’ll gain access to excellent starter gear. And if you didn’t spend much gold while leveling, you should be able to afford it easily. This gear is more than enough to handle M2 expeditions, Hive of the Gorgon, and Trial of the Devourer. The last one can be a bit tricky. It all depends on the raid leader and how strict the gear check is.
This guide uses Covenant gear as an example, but similar alternatives exist for Syndicat and Marauders. Base faction gear comes with Constitution as the default attribute, but you can buy seals to change it to any attribute you prefer.
Purchase a Covenant (Syndicat/Marauder) Sage Seal from the faction store, then take it to the Outfitting Station along with the items you want to upgrade.
Focus on a few key things:
Attributes: Ensure your gear has the right attributes for your build. For example, avoid using DEX/STR pieces for a healer or FOC pieces for damage dealers.
Weight: Stay in the correct armor weight category. In most cases, avoid medium weight as a DPS or healer. Tanks should aim for heavy armor.
Perks: Prioritize your main protection perk first (usually Enchanted Ward). Then add Refreshing and relevant weapon perks to complete your build.
Gear Score: Make sure your gear score meets the requirements for expeditions:
650 for M1
675 for M2
695 for M3 (If your gear score is below these thresholds, the game will artificially scale down your outgoing damage.)
This is how your gear could look like by the end of week 1:
First Upgrades:
This variation of the gear transitional and can be skiped towards endgame variation to save some gold on upgrades. I just wanna share all available options. If you want to use Rune Forge gear you will be slightly less optiamal on armor because of your helmet, which is light. But I would not recommend to change it. In future when you start running Hive you want all your pieces be light, only keeping shoes as medium. Always check the market, there might be cheap alternatives with similar perks.
As first step on impoving your gear you should consider running Winter Rune Forge. If you are lucky It can drop you upgradable sandals, gloves and coat
upgrade Sandals spear with enchanted ward
upgrade Gloves with refreshing or leave it as it is to save some gold
upgrade Coat with enchanted ward
In order to upgrade those items you will need
x9 chromatics seals from faction store which is equal to 45k gold. Doing your daily random runs should give you 42k by the end of the week.
x3 armor matrixes. This one various in price. On current date it is around 8k gold per one
x2 harden crystal (for enchanted ward). This one various in price. On current date it is around 6k gold per one
Tip: Keep doing your daily random expeditions and mutated expeditions to get gold to buy chromatic seals from the faction store. This is how your gear could look by the end of week 2 - week 3 of your endgame (changed items are highlited)
Remember. You can skip this variation and start doing Hive of Gorgon in your faction gear saving gold on upgrading Hoplite pieces to make Best in Slot 725 engame gear. But if not in a rush and happy to take game slow feel free to use those items in your gear
Armor Perks
Most of incoming damage, especially in boss fight, coded as light or heavy attacks. Enchanted ward reduces damage taken from it by a flat % on that armor piece. Essential for mutation expeditions to mitigate high mob damage.
Reduces cooldowns on abilities by a small percentage. Helps maintain higher skill uptime, especially useful for rotation-heavy DPS builds and support roles.
Boosts your healing when applying Orb of Protection, making it a strong value perk for passive group sustain
Can cleanse buffs such as fortify and empower from mobs
Crit Chanse is important in backless boss fights or big clumps
Increases your max HP based on the armor piece it’s on. Offers passive survivability for all roles, especially useful for light armor players or low-CON builds.
A very interesting change introduced in Season 8 is that Mortal perks are now available on armor pieces. Having one or a combination of these perks on your armor can help increase your damage or sustain. They’re mostly useless in boss fights, but can provide good value when dealing with large packs of mobs.
Value of it is not big but could be used on armor without taking important weapon perks which makes it usefull. Mortal refreshment or Mortal fortification could be options for healer build
Life Staff Perks
Increases healer power
Even tho you mostly should be using void gauntlet in some situations swaping to lifestaff with Refreshing Move can help get cooldowns back faster to save the fight
Provides fortify for better sustain in fights
Void Gauntlet Perks
A PvE-exclusive perk that increases your DoTs damage and adds 5% more consistent damage to light attacks and abilities
Very usefull in mutations with healing modifiers and in specific boss fights. e.g Ennead Anpu and Heru
Expensive
Applies Rend reducing enemy armor and significantly boosting your group’s overall damage output. Don't use more than one in a group
Attunement could be a good additional single target damage as option instead of sundering stacks
Amulet Perks
Nature, Fire, Void, and Ice are the four main elements you’ll encounter weekly in mutated expeditions. Having an amulet for each will keep you covered for endgame content. Keep in mind that the resistance cap is 50% (e.g., if you have 51% Nature resistance, only 50% will count). Slot your gems carefully to avoid exceeding the cap.
Physical damage protection can help in boss fights that aren't affected by mutators. Check the NWBuddy website to see what damage type the bosses deal in the expedition you're running, and bring an extra amulet with that type of protection.
Jewelry Perks
Great for maximizing damage boosts during fights.
Useful for boosting survivability in high-damage encounters.
Increases max stamina, allowing for more dodges. Eespecially valuable for light armor builds.
Never use regenerating as Healer. Health regen from this perk will counts towards threat and cose agro which will make your tank job much harder
Attributes Details
Attributes are an important part of your build. They provide base damage scaling for your weapon and grant additional bonuses when you reach specific checkpoints. You can read about all attribute checkpoints by simply hovering over them in-game. When building your character, consider how those checkpoints synergize with your weapon.
Avoid investing points into Constitution, as it will lower your damage output and often won’t make a significant difference in survivability. Instead, focus on learning enemy mechanics and attack patterns to understand which damage you can safely take and which attacks you should always dodge.
If you upgrade your Attuned Leather Pants to Gear Score 725, and the rest of your items are 650+, you’ll have enough total attributes to reach both the 300 Foc and 300 Int checkpoints.
I would not recommend going lower than 300 Foc at the start. Reason for that - you will not be able to join random expeditions as a healer. Even tho most of the time that amount of healing is unnecessery in low level mutations game limitations set to 300 Foc for random q.
Gear Progression
Once you've got your starter gear sorted, you can start working toward long-term goals. Focus on running Hive of the Gorgon and Trial of the Devourer—these endgame activities offer some of the best items in the game, and some drops can’t be obtained any other way.
Gear
Hoplite Mask and Hoplite Handcovers drop from Hive of the Gorgon. You can also craft them at a Gypsum Kiln using 40 Hive of the Gorgon Tokens.
Silken Cocoon and Dune Euplantula are powerful but unique items that only drop in the Trial of the Devourer. Keep in mind these are rare drops—so while farming, you can use the 725 Hoplite alternatives: Hoplite Shirt and Hoplite Boots.
Weapon
Hoplite lifestaff is best option. It has focus on it which allows to do better attribute split
Heceta artifact also good, but require other item be with your secondary attribute. Otherwise you will have to much magnify
Jewelry
Amulet and ring can only be obtained by crafting or buying from the Trading Post. There are no named alternatives for these two.
Armor Perks
Hold to main principles
x3-x4 enchanted ward (depends on boots you can find/craft/buy)
x4 refreshing
Upgrade gear with weapon perks
If there still some free perk slots upgrade it with health or mortal perks
You can choose which two extra attribute can go to 25. Can be str+dex, str+con or dex+con. You also can spend all extra points into focus or into con to get more survivability if needed
Offhand Options (Situational)
There is not much secondary option for a healer
Musket (Accelerated Traps) – Useful for speeding up movement between pulls in faster runs.
Flail - if strategy requires
Food, potions and other
Coatings are important part of your damage. Research which mobs you fight in expeditions and prepare coatings. Sometimes you might need to use few different coatings during the expedition
7% empower for any of your weapon attack
Food is important. Without it you will not be able to reach main checkpoints in attributes. So if after you prepared your gear you missing attributes it's probably a food. Don't cheap out. Buy the highest tier
Ward potions - your protection. Research which mobs you fight in expeditions and prepare ward potions. Sometimes you might need to use few different ward potions during the expedition
Helps to medigate DoT damage in expeditions
Might be usefull in some specific scenarious. E.G fire explosive mutations
How to gem up
Elemental resistance is capped at 50%. Keep this in mind when slotting gems for mutations or raids. Your amulet and gems combined should not exceed 50% resistance in total for optimal protection.
If you don’t have an amulet with a 15% resistance perk, there’s an easy solution: slot 8 gems into your armor and jewelry sockets to almost fully cover the mutation element.
Remember, some bosses deal unique elemental damage that isn’t affected by the mutation type. Check NWBuddy before entering an expedition to ensure you’re using the best protection. It’s a good idea to bring a few extra gems, amulets, or even a secondary gear set specifically for boss fights—it’ll make your experience much smoother.
Find your own optimal protection for specific encounters. Some base examples are bellow
With amulet 15% Protection
x5
Cut Pristine Amber
x2
Cut Pristine Opal
x1
Cut Pristine Onyx
x5
Cut Pristine Amethyst
x2
Cut Pristine Opal
x1
Cut Pristine Onyx
x5
Cut Pristine Ruby
x2
Cut Pristine Opal
x1
Cut Pristine Onyx
x5
Cut Pristine Aquamarine
x2
Cut Pristine Opal
x1
Cut Pristine Onyx
x6
Cut Pristine Emerald
x2
Cut Pristine Onyx
x6
Cut Pristine Jasper
x2
Cut Pristine Onyx
x6
Cut Pristine Moonstone
x2
Cut Pristine Onyx
Without amulet 15% Protection
x8
Cut Pristine Amber
x8
Cut Pristine Amethyst
x8
Cut Pristine Aquamarine
x8
Cut Pristine Ruby
Heartrunes variations
Healing, DoTs, Antieheal
PvE Healer Role Responsibilities – Life Staff + Void Gauntlet
In group PvE content (mutations, raids, trials), the healer’s job goes far beyond just topping off health bars. When running a Life Staff + Void Gauntlet build, you’re both a sustain backbone and a debuff/damage support. Here's what you're expected to do:
Keep the Team Alive with AoE Heals
Use Sacred Ground to maintain steady healing in a fixed area—especially under the tank.
Cast Beacon on bosses (or allies) to provide healing-over-time in a moving fight.
Use Orb of Protection to apply Fortify and extra healing. Great for pre-fight prep or as a filler heal.
Position yourself carefully to get maximum value out of AoE heals—try to cover multiple players at once.
Support the Group with Buffs
Sacred Ground and Orb of Protection both provide Fortify, helping reduce incoming damage.
Empowering Beacon gives DPS players a damage buff.
Your healing kit doesn't just restore health—it also boosts your team’s defensive uptime.
Debuff & Damage with Void Gauntlet
Drop Oblivion on clumped mobs or bosses to:
Grant empower to allies standing in it.
Increase Stamina Regen
Use Void Blade—applies Weaken, Disintegrate, and adds decent melee damage.
Spam Scream (Petrifying Scream) to:
Stagger and root enemies in AoE.
apply desease if running putrefying scream perk
Weave in Essence Rupture (if slotted) for group healing on hit—pairs excellently with AoE-heavy fights.
Communicate & Adapt
Call out when Oblivion is down for DPS to step in.
Adjust your priority: more healing during high-damage phases, more VG uptime during trash pulls or downtime.
Adapt to group composition—if DD players are less expirienced, focus more on healing. If survivability is high, lean more into damage and debuffs.
Summary
The Life Staff + Void Gauntlet healer is a hybrid PvE support role focused on:
Sustained AoE healing (Sacred Ground, Beacon, Orb)
Buffing allies (Fortify, Empower)
Debuffing enemies (Rend, Weaken)
Rooting and staggering dangerous mobs (Scream)
Supplementing DPS during downtime
This playstyle brings high utility and value to any group, especially in mutation content, where every second of uptime and every percent of damage reduction or output matters.