Is Defiler the worst healer among all priests?

[hisawat]

I have a level 40 defiler and bruiser. I realized my defiler has quite hard time healing when my group has a couple of adds.However, when I played my bruiser, our healer in my group (Fury or Templar) did quite good job healing when we had adds.I know defliers debuff is great, but is Defiler the worst healing class among all priests?I also checked Mystic spells at ongaming.com and I thought Mystic has better healing and debuffing spells.  I might be wrong.Just maybe next lawn looks more greener, but what do you guys think?<div></div>

[Quaan]

Defilers do just fine in exp groups etc. They play differently from the direct heal classes but once you adapt to whats required they do fine.

[Sokolov]

That depends on what you mean by "worst." If you check my link in my sig you can see the start of a post which will start to examine the healing abilities of the different priests. So far, what I have determined is that Wards are the least efficient power wise, but have a significant advantage in terms of upfront damage protection.  THis means that non-Shamans needs to start casting direct heals earlier than a Shaman, and a Shaman can debuff, of which they have some of the best. But yes, due to the nature of Reactives and Regens, Druids and Clerics will handle adds slightly better. Use your Fears and debuffs.  If your original group is already debuffed, an add isn't as big a deal. Mystics heals are faster than our's, but heal for less.  And they have one more buff than we do, I believe, but we actually buff higher health at the end of the day, tho they do have a better power buff.  So it just depends. Anyway, Defilers are formidable healers and are more often than not a staple in raiding MT groups =) <div></div>

[NimSul]

<P>If you have trouble keeping up with healing reroll your defiler on a iksar, theres no way lizards cant be uber :smileywink:</P> <P>And yea what solokov said, you got less bang for the buck sorta speak with your wards so you gotta use your advantage of best pre combat healing and debuffing to make up for having lesser raw healing thru wards than regains and reactives. All in all i think it evens good out in group encounters and when the mobs get hard we get a slight advantage depennding on our skill at taking advantage of our other than raw healing tools.</P>

[hisawat]

Sokolov, your post is awesome.  I enjoyed it.<div></div>

[Scow]

Yeah I agree with everything Sokolov has said.  But 99% of the time our MT group will always run with a Mystic over a Defiler because of the Power Buff instead of the HP Buff.  Plus they are a bit faster on the healing part.  But Being the Main and only defiler in guild atm I am always with the second tank group. 

[Lyrus]

Both of our MT tank groups use defilers. They're the one healer class I can't get enough of. With much love to you all!<div></div>

[B94Cast]

<P>Another thing to consider is the prevention of damage in total numbers vesus healing in total numbers.  Take this example, MT gives count, and you cast single target ward, group ward, and spiritual circle.  This will be a total of roughly 7K of damage absorption on the pull.  That is 7K worth of damage that you dont have to heal on your tank.  Assuming wards are not tore down before next cycle time, cast single ward (2k) single ward (2k), then group ward will be up (3.3k) and your spiritual circle is still casting its roughly 700 ward.  Cast your ward on attack on the mob(bane of protection), theres even more warding.  If you calculate the total amount of damage that you can Stop from even occuring within a 1 minute time frame, it often is above what could be healed by many healers at once.  So technically speaking, we "heal" through prevention better than any class (I am adding mystics into the we) out there IMO.  Add on top of that our DPS debuffs, 32% drop in all stats, etc.. we prevent even further damage from occuring to the tank.  </P> <P>So all of that is to say in a hopefully not too convoluted way, we dont heal as well as other classes.  We stop the need for healing through prevention.  Unfortunately, due the way our wards prevent damage, there is not yet a current viable way to display these statistics through a parser.</P> <P>Something fun to do - when you log your defiler - calculate your cast/recast times for all of your wards.  Calculate your chain cast rate for one minute.  Add the total together to see the damage you would prevent in one minute.  I think many would be surprised at the result.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  </P> <P>Going off of memory, My numbers: </P> <P>Malignant Shroud (master1) 1965 + relic armor +stat of +65 8 second cycle (2 cast, 6 recast)</P> <P>Abhorrent Shroud (adept3) 3350 13 second cycle (3 cast, 10 recast)</P> <P>Spiritual Circle (master1) 700 every 4 seconds</P> <P>14000K damage (rounded down) in one minute for Malignant Shroud, 13400 damage (rounded down) in one minute for Abhorrent shroud, and assuming spiritual circle survies for 30seconds 2800 damage.  </P> <P>With the number being rounded down, that is 30K damage stopped in one minute, not counting debuffs and other spells that decrease damage, or actually clicking any of your heal buttons.  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>(i realize these numbers are not exact, but at work, and cant lookup all the stuff, but gets the point across - i can get exact numbers if anyone wants later on.)</P> <P>hope that helps <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[MilkToa]

<P>Another thing to consider is that wards are currently bugged. I'm not really sure what the overall impact of this bug is on healing but a 'leaky' ward at the wrong time has to be painful. Otherwise, defilers are very capable healers.</P>

[B94Cast]

<P>The wards were supposedly fixed today! </P> <P>Defiler:<BR>- Defiler group wards will now work properly when they are recast before expiring.<BR>- An issue that could cause damage to "leak" through a ward when the ward critical healed has been corrected.<BR></P>

[firewolf]

My defiler is only 28, so not sure how it is at high end However, I find that he is a fantastic healer against 3 arrows up heroic mob. The 2 ward allow the tank to take no damage when pulling. Then I can casts slow and stats debuff before needing to renew ward again. As long as the mob is not blowing through the 2 wards faster than the ward recast timer, no problem at keeping the tank at full hp. The only time I have trouble is when the mob tear down my ward in under 5 seconds, i.e. fighting 2 even con 3 arrows up heroic. To me, maintaining wards are much easier than casting direct heal. <div></div>

[PhozFa]

I 2box a defiler with a bruiser and am totally happy with the healing.. actully when i dou i don't even heal. Debuffs + Wards are more than enough to combine with the bruisers stuns to not even use a heal on even ^^^s (some mobs may be diffrent not saying its this way for every even mob) <div></div>

[Rappy]

Saw this from the main boards, sorry for poking my nose in but you guys are fine <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, certainly not the worst, actually having put the work in most healers are about the same.  The only thing you may run into is that SoE feel a continual need to break and re-fix the wards.<div></div>

[sostrows]

Factors of gameplay:person's skill > tank's skill > quality of spells > quality of gear > class abilitiesTreasured Templar with Excellent skills > Fabled Fury with monkey controlling toonclass abilities across the 6 priest classes are not significantly different in my mind.  how the person uses those class abilities is.<div></div>

[Munter78]

<P>I would actually go as to say the defiler is the best healer of all priests.   Just ward, mass debuff, and heal whenever.  with the debuffs and combination of wards and heals.......nobody can compete.   Defilers got the ward pet, pretty [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] good dps, some of the best buffs and debuffs.   why you complaining? lol</P> <P> </P>

[NimSul]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Rappy wrote:<BR>Saw this from the main boards, sorry for poking my nose in but you guys are fine <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, certainly not the worst, actually having put the work in most healers are about the same.  The only thing you may run into is that SoE feel a continual need to break and re-fix the wards.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Other classes comments are always welcome here, you might have something interesting to say that we dont wanna miss :smileysurprised:

[Karihi]

<P>Another thing to add into the how much we ward equation is the procing ward, i've seen mine go off up to 8 times a med length fight at 688ish protection each time =  another 5,500ish ontop of all of that.  I have to also mention that I add over 1500 health onto the tank.</P> <P>I find with my defiler that most of the problem with the adds is the recast on the heals, just seems like they are down forever.  </P> <P>I find that I usually go - solo ward, group ward, solo ward...  then the shinypet, debuff some more, and heal, while waiting for both wards to come back up.   Another good thing is to go - shinypet, group heal, group ward, solo ward, group heal, solo heals, if more is needed in the group sense.  However that is always a large mana drain, so forced cannibalize, manastone, manastone 2, and maelstrom are also good at times.</P> <P>In raids and that you will do the yoyo thing with tanks health, sometimes they freak out because of it, kinda funny... so wards are up, they are still green, wards get eaten and boom red, wards go back up and they get back to green and then back to red and green and lather rinse and repeat.  But I've had it where the defiler was the one who made the difference in the raid.  The wards compliment the other healers so they can bring the health up faster.</P> <P>Things I don't like are the ward leakage that was happening, finding that ghostly avenger, crystalise spirit do almost nothing, my aggro meter seems to be off, somedays they run through walls for me, other days i can almost walk right in front of them wthout getting attention.  I think soe is still confused about where to shove us in the aggro scale.</P> <P>One thing I really hate -- SOE is colour blind.  Call the fashion police on them please.  (Currently it looks like I am wearing water wings on my arms, my chest is silver purple, and my pants are flood pants; that are bright blue and puke green, yum!)   But that has nothing to do with the defiler. =)     </P> <P>Personally I love my defiler.  I have played other classes, and the other healers, but I keep coming back to my defiler.  I guess it's just personal choice, as with any other class.</P><p>Message Edited by Karihi on <span class=date_text>04-18-2006</span> <span class=time_text>02:44 AM</span>

[Zard]

<DIV>As young Defiler (level 30 now) I feel so confident being the only healer in a regular XP group that I have left groups that insist on waiting to get a second healer instead of filling the last slot with more DPS; ideally a Bard or Enchanter if we don't have one yet. At level 26, for example, I could keep a level 30 Monk alive against level 33/34 golems in RoV but he would get a little nervous when each damaging hit took away almost half his health and it would take a few seconds to restore it. I would like to see a non-Shaman (a Mystic could, I'm sure) do that. And when we do get a second healer, I recommend a Druid (Fury or Warden) since their HoT's work great with our wards.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Our instant wards have also saved many a squishie from two-shot deaths from an add before the main tank can get its attention. One-shot deaths are usually only preventable if maintaining a group ward and, due to its long casting time, I rarely use it unless we have a Warlock and are fighting large groups of mobs. Again, I doubt a non-Shaman can prevent one-shots.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>No one ever talks about our debuffs either since their benefits are not readily apparent unless running a parser.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It is much easier watching a health bar stay full and thinking, "wow, he's a good healer" or wondering "why is that Defiler nuking when he should be healing?!"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In one group I had with a Templar recently, I was the one constantly warding and healing while the Templar was busy nuking or doing nothing at all! (I was watching his power bar and rarely saw it dip)  To make it worse, when we broke up for the night, it was all accolades <EM>for him</EM> like "great healing, thanks!" and, of course, no one else in the group received any compliments.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We are definitely not the worst healers in the game, just one of the least understood classes.  :smileysad:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>Message Edited by DeathMutant on <span class=date_text>04-18-2006</span> <span class=time_text>03:45 PM</span>