Overview

Soothsayer is a primarily healer build, but with the option of becoming an assassin burst class for brief periods at a time. The second benefit as a healer class is the high mobility it provides, which for a healer means surviving when enemies try to focus you down.

Your damage will be all about practicing the trip+backstab combo, your healing will be strong single-target support. Use extremely high mobility to accomplish both of these and stay alive.

The damage side of things

Shadowplay damage requires you to make use of the and passives to maximize burst. The idea is to trip the target with and , use while getting behind them to trigger and build up more Bloodthirst, and lastly and escape using any of your mobility options (Drop Back/Teleport/Shadowstep/followed by Stealth if necessary).

That very last step--getting the hell out--is extremely important, because your damage drops to zero once your abilities are on cooldown. To help with that, is taken so you can backstab all the more often.

The healing side of things

For the most part, Soothsayer builds like any other primary healer. You can afford to spec heavily into Vitalism and take only what you need from Auramancy, and this is important because you won't be relying on your damage most of the time so this you stay useful as a strong healer during that time.

Just like with Shadowplay, you're limited by your cooldowns, which makes a powerful passive. Aside from the obvious + healing combo, you have a lot of flexibility with your options in these skill trees. Focus on single-target healing and support with , (primarily PVE), and , or on group support with ,, and .

Note that and will both be buffed in the 2.5 patch that's about to come out, and so they may be very powerful single-target support skills very soon. Likewise, will be getting a HUGE buff to radius, so expect to see it in mass pvp a lot.

I would just recommend always making use of , which can purge things like Stalker's Mark off of allies, decrease healing effectiveness on enemies, and boost your own healing output on single targets.

Final tip: Be sure to check out Auroria armor for Vitalism skills (cheap on the Auction House). Vitalism has some of the more powerful Auroria passives, primarily focused on reducing the cast times for Mend, Revive, and Antithesis.