Betrayed to Fury - and loving it. [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

View Full Version : Betrayed to Fury - and loving it.

TuinalOfTheNexus

03-13-2007, 12:24 PM

My first EQ2 character was a Warden. He was my first char to 70, the one I did all the heritage quests with, and whilst my main is a Guardian now I still play him a fair bit.I think, like a lot of Wardens, I was looking at the Fury spells and wondering if it was simply a "grass is always greener" case. Yeah, they get bigger nukes, but a longer recast. Yeah, they get bigger direct heals, but we have the HoT component. They might get group invis but evac is as useful... right? And that AA that increases nuke damage by 50%... it must have some drawback, right?Since the Warden isn't my main anymore, and thus only had Adept IIIs and no class-specific armor except his hat, I was able to betray him at fairly low cost to an Ad III'd Fury. I think it was the awful Warden AAs that finally broke me. I actually tried a respec to a full "melee warden", and the damage was laughable. Additionally, we've had masses of EoF Fury set gear drop and it's going to alts - so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. Following a quick betrayal, this last week I've had a chance to play a 70 Fury solo, group, and in a pickup HoS raid. And let me say, the grass is greener on the other side.Lets start with DPS, because it's the clearest difference. A Fury is flat out better in any situation. Energy Vortex alone sees to this; I was hitting for upwards of 7k on the debuffed mob on a raid, and that's with an AdIII nuke. Against large groups of mobs Ring of Fire and Call of Storms push the gap much, much further. I even topped the parse on trash with a consistent 1200+ DPS - on a single target. I think with practice and M1s this would be easily uppable to around 1500, and I've seen our raid Furies come close to this so it's no secret.But that's what Furies do, right? The Warden is the better healer! Well, in my mind, with a gap in DPS so huge, I was expecting to feel rather gimped as a healer. Not so! Furies actually have more direct heals than Wardens, so you can respond to a spike in damage (which is the Achilles' Heel of the Druid archetype) considerably better. Asides from equivalents to Sylvan Streams and Verdant Bliss that do more healing up-front, and very similar group and single-target HoTs, you have Back into the Fray, and Hibernation, which are both 1k+ heals with fast recasts. The only heal you don't have an equivalent to is Heirophantic Advent, which of course decreases your hp/sec healed by stunning you, and the much despised Protecting Grove which routinely gets in the way of targetting and dies to the first AE. Soloing healing Unrest was a breeze; and that was with a Monk tanking. I'll admit I had to stop with the DPS to do this, but I definitely came away feeling the two classes were pretty equivalent in general healing, with the Fury better with spikes and the Warden with power conservation on long fights.With respect to utility, you lose Evac, which I won't miss since the game no longer has a death penalty and evac often causes more problems than it solves. You lose Sandstorm, still good against Heroics but useless solo and on raids, and nerfed to a shadow of it's former self. You lose the rather lame group elemental ward. In trade, you get Pact of the Cheetah which can be incredibly useful on raids (PHH anyone?) and general travel, group invis which will save you a fortune on totems in the long term, a better damage shield, a 60 haste / DPS proc that's better than Primitive Instinct in most situations, and +int rather than +wis - maybe a personal thing but I find the int more useful too.Soloability was a concern when I betrayed. A Warden has 2 roots, so can keep things reliably rooted. I was worried the single, inferior root of the Fury would mean soloing heroics in places like MMC would be a lot harder. However, again I was pleasantly surprised. Because a Fury hits much, much harder with each nuke, you've got a far lower chance of it breaking than a Warden alternating Frost/Heat nukes. In general the mobs died about twice as fast with the Fury, and I was left with much more power to spare - often with the Warden you'd be OOP and rooting the mob while you regenned, with the Fury it's dead before you're OOP.In short, even though I've betrayed, I'd like to see balance in the game, and atm having seen both sides of the coin, I can honestly conclude the Fury class is - in the vast, vast, majority of situations, better than the Warden class. The only use of a Warden is in the MT group on a raid where I'd concede they're more useful than a Fury. In any solo or group situation, Fury wins hands down. In any role on a raid outside the MT group, Fury wins hands down. For the sheer fun on unleashing call of storms on a mass of mobs - Fury wins hands down. If you can afford to betray, trust me, you won't regret it.

Skivley101

03-13-2007, 01:46 PM

Hey thanx... that was actually a usefull and informative post on this subject

judged_one

03-13-2007, 05:19 PM

Cool info. I betrayed my fury to warden at the beginning of KoS. I agree with almost everything, and also a fury can pull 5-6 solo mobs with both dot running and RoF, you can just porcupin your self and watch all the mobs die. Fae Fire is also awesome. However, I do feel that a warden heals better. Here is my though 1.) Spore. This buff procs off almost every 2 second. And with the new AA it is even better 2.) Elemental Ward. Love it. 3.) Tree. If you place it right, it actually is a nice addition 4.) DoT portion of heal. When Hot is staking with both DDheal and group heal, the DoT portion of heal is pretty big 5.) Sandstorm is the good old, old crap we pulled 5 encounters and stay alive buttons in group situtaion

Bobkat

03-13-2007, 05:57 PM

Nice to see someone look at both sides of the coin (rather than just assuming based on others observations) and make a decision as to which side shines better for them. OP, good job on putting together a constructive and informative post. You laid out your opinions, observations, and included supporting evidence.What I think we can all learn from this post is that EQ2 offers a lot of choice and a lot of variability. People play in different ways and enjoy different aspects of the game. Why should it always come down to my class is better/worse than yours? Follow the lead of the OP here and post what is better for YOU in an open minded way and continue to respect others for their opinions.Personally I love the Warden class (in a pure Melee capacity, I simply can't retrain my grin when I run in toe to toe with mobs 5 levels over my head and hack and slash as if I were a tank) but I think the Fury will be my next class to test drive. Ive considered a lot of the points the OP made here on my own, and hearing a Warden convert makes it even more interesting.. But never fear, I love my Warden and always will..The moral of the story here? There is room enough in this world for Furies and Wardens to co-exist and the range of AA spec options for both classes means there is a good number of possible player types that these two sub classes can appeal to.Besides, this is a game afterall.. And I would venture to guess most of us play to have fun (what a concept!) That being the case, who really cares what is mathmatically the "best" option? Do what is fun for you! A grin on your face is worth more than any particular DPS or HPS number you can toss out there (in my opinion).

Tricit2

03-13-2007, 05:59 PM

I am kind of concerned... I am currently a level 11 Warden. I've started playing since the release of Echo's of Faydwar, and tried many classes... both good and evil. Now this is what it comes down to: I love to travel. Obviously, the quickest traveling classes are Fury and Warden, or Druids, with Sorcerers in a close second and bards in a far third. I am on a pvp server, and spike damage is key in pvp, from what I've seen (highest I've been in level so far in pvp is 30). However, I've deleted all my other accounts and devoted myself to this Warden. All the spells I would find myself using in PvP, I always make into Adept III. I am going to end up a sage. Sorry for that distraction. My problem is, I know Fury can get an travel speed as fast as warden, and on top of that, it's all in combat run speed. They achieve this by the wisdom line. The 1.3% run speed per rank... it stacks with their in combat run speed, but NOT our out of combat run speed (please note I've taken warden above 11 before, just that one is gone now). I know this, because I was fae, and I get that 5% in combat run speed, put on my 45% Spirit of the Wolf, and TA DA..... 45% run speed... [Removed for Content]! I know Warden isn't a broken class, but if they're going to give Fury such a fast in combat running speed, they should atleast allow in combat run speed to be able to stack on top of out of combat run speed. Does anyone know by chance if that wisdom line run speed stacks with Spirit of the Wolf? If not, then oh well... I love Warden over Fury for one reason. Instant Spike damage. It's the most effective thing that any class can do in PvP groups. Especially a Healer.... NOT wasting time on nukes, but taking a measily second or two to release all your damage in a quick blow, then having plenty of time to heal in between, in my eyes, puts Warden far ahead Fury in terms of PvP. So... those are my views, and I know Warden can converge to DPS numbers that Fury obtains, but not quite hitting it. That doesn't bother me, really... It's the efficiency of Wardens that I absolutely LOVE best, but I still have this inner urge telling me that Fury is still way better. Any further elaboration on why Warden is STILL good is nice. Last note: Now, it's obvious that Warden is great when compared to other classes, probably in equality with them... I just can't get over Fury! But if I go to Fury, invest in that, they're probably preparing their Fury nerf anyways... why bother?

Formangenavn

03-13-2007, 06:07 PM

Nice writeupHere is what I think about sandstorm : <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=30&topic_id=181456" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=181456</a>Not parsed it lately, but have not seen anything letting me belive it is different now.

Zelkova

03-13-2007, 07:44 PM

<cite>Tricit2 wrote:</cite><blockquote> Last note: Now, it's obvious that Warden is great when compared to other classes, probably in equality with them... I just can't get over Fury! But if I go to Fury, invest in that, they're probably preparing their Fury nerf anyways... why bother?</blockquote>I wouldn't worry too much about furies getting "nerfed". As far as DPS goes, they have a lot for a HEALER, but compared to real DPS classes they are rather weak. People tend to see the parses and assume that the higher up you are on it, the better your class is. WRONG. And unfortunately, all furies are good at is parsing high. Cheetah better than evac? That's a joke if I've ever heard one, evac is a utility where cheetah is generally delaying the inevitable (but it's fun to run 99% speed when traveling I must admit). Wardens have ALL the mitigation buffs, furies have nothing but the standard fare generic priest buffs. Wardens heal MUCH more hit points per second once those HoTs get ticking, furies have more "bursty" healing but it's definitely not "better", it's just different. Hibernation can hardly be counted since it heals one time, 10 seconds after you cast it, and by then the healing probably isn't even needed. Wardens are the ONLY option if you like to melee, and don't like to waste time casting long spells, or they can stand back and nuke if they choose. Furies don't have the option to go pure melee, they just don't have the punch. Anyway, I can tell you one thing about the OP: they like playing a fury better. It's not because furies are superior. And since there seems to be some confusion about the "drawback" of energy vortex.. 50% reduction in healing counts as one, I believe.

TuinalOfTheNexus

03-13-2007, 11:15 PM

<cite>Zelkova wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tricit2 wrote:</cite><blockquote> Last note: Now, it's obvious that Warden is great when compared to other classes, probably in equality with them... I just can't get over Fury! But if I go to Fury, invest in that, they're probably preparing their Fury nerf anyways... why bother?</blockquote>I wouldn't worry too much about furies getting "nerfed". As far as DPS goes, they have a lot for a HEALER, but compared to real DPS classes they are rather weak. People tend to see the parses and assume that the higher up you are on it, the better your class is. WRONG. And unfortunately, all furies are good at is parsing high. Cheetah better than evac? That's a joke if I've ever heard one, evac is a utility where cheetah is generally delaying the inevitable (but it's fun to run 99% speed when traveling I must admit). Wardens have ALL the mitigation buffs, furies have nothing but the standard fare generic priest buffs. Wardens heal MUCH more hit points per second once those HoTs get ticking, furies have more "bursty" healing but it's definitely not "better", it's just different. Hibernation can hardly be counted since it heals one time, 10 seconds after you cast it, and by then the healing probably isn't even needed. Wardens are the ONLY option if you like to melee, and don't like to waste time casting long spells, or they can stand back and nuke if they choose. Furies don't have the option to go pure melee, they just don't have the punch. Anyway, I can tell you one thing about the OP: they like playing a fury better. It's not because furies are superior. And since there seems to be some confusion about the "drawback" of energy vortex.. 50% reduction in healing counts as one, I believe. </blockquote>Well, I thought the same thing till I betrayed and actually used it. But energy vortex can be cancelled and activated instantly (even while casting another spell); you'll never be in a situation where you need to heal and are unable to. In the worst case you have to cancel it early and lose some DPS, but the healing penalty really is easily enough avoidable to be negligible.I feel cheetah is better than evac, and stand by that. If you evac you've lost the encounter - whereas cheetah can actually be used to turn many outdoor fights around. With the death penalty so negligible, you might as well die in an dungeon; particularly in places like CMM where evac takes you to the wrong zone in. And many other classes have evac (and when things really look bad you want a scout evaccing while you spam heals), whilst only Furies have a buff like cheetah.Furies have, I think, a better mitigation group buff than Wardens (or at least an identical one), and can buff mitigation by 2k through porcupine - the biggest mit buff in the game by a huge margin, so I don't see how you can say wardens have "all the mitigation buffs". I do agree the Fury heals aren't superior to a Wardens in every way; in fact the healing for both classes is pretty close, it's just Furies excel in every other area by a huge margin. Finally, I just don't see Wardens being an option if you want to melee - they might have the AAs to suggest it, but they're so [Removed for Content] awful in terms of DPS that they in no way justify putting yourself in range of every barrage and AE the mob throws out. You have to invest like 50 AA points in melee skills, and the net result is less DPS than a Fury with no AA and with none of the range.

Zelkova

03-14-2007, 12:32 AM

Sorry I forgot about porcupine. It's rarely used and when it is, it's because I have another healer in the group. I know it can be useful, sometimes. But if you really compare having 2k+ mit to everything vs having a non-stunned Fury spamming heals, you'd probably agree that the fury is better. Especially since Urchin can only be on one person. Granted, it's nice to have when you have no power left and need to do something... since Animal Form, I'd rather be trying to gain power back with that instead. Warden's mit buff provides the same physical mit as all other priest's do (including the furies) but there is an added mitigation to all non-physical damage on the warden's, furies get negligible HP regen for their secondary effect. Wardens also buff more WIS in general, which in turn buffs non-physical mit further. Warden's self-buff provides so much mit that they end up with more than brawlers so they are pretty tough for a leather wearer, with extreme resistances to boot. I would say if they had some way to buff STR they would be awesome melee-specced, just that right now it takes a lot of gear hunting to get that much-needed stat (but they CAN get it). I'm glad you found some use for cheetah in a raid situation. I can see how it might be good for that fight but I tend to be standing still while tortoise shell is running so nobody in the group needs to run anywhere when they pumpkins spawn. I just can't think of many situations where it'd really be a "fight winner". If the case turns up where you are losing a fight and you DO need to run, evac can save you. Nevermind that the death penalty is small, it's still inconvenient for the whole group to die / rebuff. Plus evac is very nice outside of combat, where cheetah is more of a novelty. Also, since you mentioned that even you feel Warden's are better as MT support.. to a lot of people that's all that matters. Priests are typically seen as support classes that backup a tank, and wardens are superior in that role hands down. Furies are more or less useless in the MT group. They are not even situationally useful there, just flat out bad. The thing about energy vortex... once you need to heal, the buff is gone and you get to wait out the downtime. Or you heal at 50% strength (good luck). You can't just flip it on and off between casts to do what's needed. It's a nice tool for putting out some burst damage for a short time, which fits in pretty well with the fury's theme. But once again, bigger numbers do not equal better class. Anyway, I don't think Wardens are the best or anything, but I also don't think you give them enough credit. You didn't like the class (obviously, you betrayed instead of just rolling a new character), it didn't do the damage you wanted, you don't find evac useful, that's all fine. I just don't see how that qualifies it as being inferior in every way except for MT support. Wardens are still great in groups, and also great soloers thanks to their superior rooting abilities (even without the root AAs), and can take a beating a lot better when it comes down to it.

Haffel

03-14-2007, 08:55 AM

I am currently playing a lvl 40 melee warden and i love it. However i have thought about playing a fury instead simply because i feel they are better in the long run. Although i haven't quite made up my mind yet i am still very interested in knowing how this betryaing thing works. I have only played eqii for a few weeks so I don't know how the betray thing works. Would anyone be nice and tell me how to betray a warden to fury etc. I am currently Freeport and want to remain on freeport side too coz i have friends that i play with. Anyhow, please be kind and provide me with a link and some explanaition as to what the costs and benefits are etc.Thanks on advance, PS: I liked the OP's post as i have pretty much the same thoughts as he did before he betrayed to fury.

Rattfa

03-14-2007, 09:13 AM

lmhotep

03-14-2007, 11:31 AM

Only reason i see for the OP to start this topic is to fire off yet another pointless flamewar.If your so happy with your fury wich obviously fits your playstyle better then go and post how happy you are in the fury forum.The only thing your gaining from all of this is that you will lose alot of credibility cos after betraying your warden to a fury and playing it for a couple of days you still know [Removed for Content] about the class and its abilities other then your able to read the spell descriptions of your hotbar.

Fromingo

03-14-2007, 03:28 PM

I have both a fury and a warden. They are the same level. Both have good equip. I can heal equally well with both. As a warden I do miss invis and cheetah, as a fury I miss evac. The fury does have better DPS however. Personally I just love the melee line of wardens and I could never give it up. It's fantastic and my only complaint is that they don't make it advancable to 7-9 points, in each CA, to let it scale to Master 1. I would also like to see Primal instinct work on both the caster and target so that when MT's whine for it I don't lose it on my own melee since I don't have the higher bonus to hit that true melee classs CA's have.

TuinalOfTheNexus

03-14-2007, 04:07 PM

Finilie@Runnyeye wrote: <blockquote>Only reason i see for the OP to start this topic is to fire off yet another pointless flamewar.If your so happy with your fury wich obviously fits your playstyle better then go and post how happy you are in the fury forum.The only thing your gaining from all of this is that you will lose alot of credibility cos after betraying your warden to a fury and playing it for a couple of days you still know [I cannot control my vocabulary] about the class and its abilities other then your able to read the spell descriptions of your hotbar.</blockquote> Credibility? I wasn't aware I had any in the first place <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />A post "aren't furies great" in the Fury forums wouldn't be constructive. I might have only played a Fury for a week, but I played a Warden for 3 years, so I can certainly compare on some level. In theory, I'm a worse player as a Fury than a Warden, but I'm finding it easier to keep a group up, and parsing much, much higher as the Fury.If anything, I made the post to try and draw some attention to the fact that the Warden class needs some tuning; particularly with respect to EoF AAs. I thought for the longest time the classes were about balanced and was genuinely concerned after betraying I'd find the Fury class had unforseen weaknesses. But what I instead found was that the Fury was superior in any situation, except as MT healer on a raid. Even then, the gap in buffs really isn't so noticable that a Fury would be incapable of MT healing duty; perhaps even superior in situations where huge damage spikes are likely.

Skivley101

03-15-2007, 01:23 PM

Nexiia

03-16-2007, 04:47 AM

I Replied to the Wrong Thread WOOPS

Valena

03-16-2007, 05:21 AM

Oakum

03-17-2007, 03:04 AM

The OP has put some very valid points out there about the balance between the two dps hybrid healers. Maybe we will get lucky and the post will be read by the dev's and warden issues will be helped a little. I don't think so though. The fury's recently had one of their post about a spell issue jumped on and taken care of ASAP. I have only one character I really play and thats my warden. I will not betray it to fury even though they are currently a better more rounded class then warden. I just hope we are fixed some day. For those who say we are fully balanced with fury's answer the following questions. With diminishing returns how important are the warden wisdom buffs and the resist they give to the group?The extra self mit buff a warden has is the only way we are really more defensive then fury's. How is that any good when the fury's dps is so much higher that they still solo better then us and now have a root also to keep mobs at bay?Who can use a two handed sword in the game, the nuking fury or the meleeing warden? Whats more defensive and useful. The fury's urchin which stuns them or our hirephantic genisis which stuns us? If you had a choice of which spell to cast that would stun you, which would help a tank more?Which druid has more gear available for their (since EoF anyway) DPS styles. Is there more druid gear with int and procs off of spells or str with procs off of melee?Who handles spike damage better, the fury or warden?Pact of the Cheetah can allow training to "safe" spots in a zone even if a group member gets put in combat accidently while our ward is only good for mobs which do heat/cold damage so w. Which is more useful, group invis or evac? Which saves more time. Using invis and pact of the cheetah to train through catacombs to get to the upper levels or fightiing every mob in the way to get to the top? Who spends more, fury's getting evac roots/items or wardens buying invis totems?Which is more useful, BITF or Tunares watch?If a raid force gets geared up to the point where only two healers were needed in the MT group who would be asked not to go? The templer, the mystic/defiler or the warden? Would the fury be asked to go and the warden put in his/her spot in a DPS group?We are more power efficient then fury's are though (unless melee dps'ing) and can heal for more in the long run if the tank is taking constant moderate damage (as long as its not heavy spikes in which case the tank is dead anyway) so its not all one sided though. Its just not a smart thing to look at a few positives and bury our heads in the sand. We are not balanced. We are not more "defensive" then fury's except in our self buffs. We just lack all the offensive buffs the fury have. We can not do the same melee DPS as the Fury can do spell DPS and we use a whole lot more power if melee DPS'ing so our efficiency goes out the window. Being a warden is fun but I am disappointed at the way the class has been degraded by default in comparison to other healers in the last 2 or 3 expansions. They have all been improved in various ways while the warden has just got more of the same. Many think we should be happy with just healing and not compare our DPS, buffs, debuffs, and utility with other healers. But that is balance. We shouldnt have the exact same abilities as our counterparts, we should have different but EQUIVILANT abilities. While we do have some different abilities, like melee vs nuke dpsing for druids, they are not equivelant and not equally supported by gear either.

Zelkova

03-17-2007, 07:23 AM

<cite>Oakum wrote:</cite><blockquote>The OP has put some very valid points out there about the balance between the two dps hybrid healers. Maybe we will get lucky and the post will be read by the dev's and warden issues will be helped a little. I don't think so though. The fury's recently had one of their post about a spell issue jumped on and taken care of ASAP. I have only one character I really play and thats my warden. I will not betray it to fury even though they are currently a better more rounded class then warden. I just hope we are fixed some day. For those who say we are fully balanced with fury's answer the following questions. I don't say this but I will answer anyway cause I'm bored With diminishing returns how important are the warden wisdom buffs and the resist they give to the group? Only as important as the stats you can get by NOT wearing gear specifically to boost those resists needed. You really shouldn't underestimate resists, even with diminishing returns. Remember that the difference between 60% and 70% resists is 25% less damage. When taking big hits, every bit counts. The extra self mit buff a warden has is the only way we are really more defensive then fury's. How is that any good when the fury's dps is so much higher that they still solo better then us and now have a root also to keep mobs at bay? So your perception is that faster is automatically better, am I right? Because that's all that damage allows them to do, kill faster. Your superior rooting abilities allow you to take on more dangerous mobs and survive. Your extra mit is not insignificant for the rare occasion your target does break free, where a fury would tear like a wet paper towel. Let's not forget about the previously mentioned resist buffs. Who can use a two handed sword in the game, the nuking fury or the meleeing warden? I read about this.. but I don't know the real answer. It sounds like more of a bug / oversight than anything else. I honestly can't see a reason why one druid would be able to wear something that the other can't. (Set gear being an exception, of course) Whats more defensive and useful. The fury's urchin which stuns them or our hirephantic genisis which stuns us? If you had a choice of which spell to cast that would stun you, which would help a tank more? They both suck, but are useful sometimes. Still apples and oranges though. I wouldn't use either unless I was out of power and in that case they are both quite good. Which druid has more gear available for their (since EoF anyway) DPS styles. Is there more druid gear with int and procs off of spells or str with procs off of melee? Do some research. Almost all brawler - oriented gear, especially leather, is wearable by druids. There is plenty out there. Who handles spike damage better, the fury or warden? Furies, potentially. It is not fully controllable however, as BITF is a small heal unless the target is under half health, and Hibernation is almost completely random whether or not it's needed at the time it triggers. Wardens have an extra save vs death, making them the kings of countering critical damage spikes IMO. Afterall, a druid's only means of absolutely preventing damage is in the form of save vs death. Pact of the Cheetah can allow training to "safe" spots in a zone even if a group member gets put in combat accidently while our ward is only good for mobs which do heat/cold damage so w. W? Anyway, I'll give you cheetah and you give me your elemental ward and we'll call it a day. If you seriously don't see how useful it is, that's your loss. Don't forget to drag "Sprint" to your hotbars, in the meantime. Which is more useful, group invis or evac? Which saves more time. Using invis and pact of the cheetah to train through catacombs to get to the upper levels or fightiing every mob in the way to get to the top? Evac is better than group invis as a player ability mainly because, individual invis totems are cheap and easy to come by, and actually better (jaguar totems grant stealth at the same time). Having had and used group invis for a long time on multiple characters I can assure you it is a blessing and a curse, and gets groups killed plenty. Evac items are not so simple to come by so it should be considered the superior utility. The same goes for "training" through a zone with cheetah running.. what happens when 1 person gets rooted and dies, do you leave them behind? You can't exactly stop without getting the entire group wiped by the massive train.... not a gamble worth taking for most. Who spends more, fury's getting evac roots/items or wardens buying invis totems? There's evac / root items? Where? Are you talking about the rare lore reward from the carnivorous plant? Or the expensive status items? Well either way.. invis totems are dirt cheap and much more available. Which is more useful, BITF or Tunares watch? Oh hey there's that extra save vs death I was talking about. I dunno, an extra save vs death on a 5 minute timer is pretty useful. It's a hard choice to say which is better. If a raid force gets geared up to the point where only two healers were needed in the MT group who would be asked not to go? The templer, the mystic/defiler or the warden? Would the fury be asked to go and the warden put in his/her spot in a DPS group? This is an unfair question(s), as it really depends on the encounter, and the rest of the classes that make up the raid. In some cases a cleric / shaman pair may not be better than a cleric or shaman + warden, like for example Bonesnapper in Fallen Dynasty, a warden is invaluable in the MT group regardless of whatever other healer is in it. If an offtank group is needed, Warden will be more desireable there. If you're implying that Wardens are an expendable healer that's just incorrect, they are nearly always better (as a healer) than a fury. If you have a primarily caster DPS group lacking a healer that is just one specific situation where a fury would be preferred, and not a definite reason why they are better overall. To put it simply: a fury has no place in a tank group and a warden has no place in a (caster) DPS group. We are more power efficient then fury's are though (unless melee dps'ing) and can heal for more in the long run if the tank is taking constant moderate damage (as long as its not heavy spikes in which case the tank is dead anyway) so its not all one sided though. Its just not a smart thing to look at a few positives and bury our heads in the sand. We are not balanced. We are not more "defensive" then fury's except in our self buffs. We just lack all the offensive buffs the fury have. We can not do the same melee DPS as the Fury can do spell DPS and we use a whole lot more power if melee DPS'ing so our efficiency goes out the window. Being a warden is fun but I am disappointed at the way the class has been degraded by default in comparison to other healers in the last 2 or 3 expansions. They have all been improved in various ways while the warden has just got more of the same. Many think we should be happy with just healing and not compare our DPS, buffs, debuffs, and utility with other healers. But that is balance. We shouldnt have the exact same abilities as our counterparts, we should have different but EQUIVILANT abilities. While we do have some different abilities, like melee vs nuke dpsing for druids, they are not equivelant and not equally supported by gear either. </blockquote>I do agree there is some issues with the implimentation of the EOF AAs, melee KoS AAs and availability of gear in the sense that you need to share with brawlers. But otherwise.. there is no serious problems.

Chay

03-17-2007, 12:11 PM

I just can't see ever putting the time and effort into a class then betraying it to playing another class unless you just wanted to play a misaligned character ("good" race in "bad" city or visa versa). If so more power to you! Comparing subclasses only works when comparing abilities that match up (green apples to red apple). When you start comparing spells that don't match up then you're just looking at personal preference really. That's all its about, all it will ever be about. If Fury spells are more your cup of tea then drink away. Whatever is unbalanced or broken on a Druid subclass has nothing to do with the other subclass but more to do with the Archetype (priest) and what you see the role of the subclass as and how effective the spells are in relation to that. If you start looking for greener grass you'll always find it... Breaking it down to bullets because I can... 1. Play a class you love. If you don't love it don't play it. 2. Learn your class and how to be effective in it and don't worry about what the other guy has. 3. Don't compare spells but look at what the purpose of the spell is and then determine how it can be improved if needed. 4. Be brave, don't imitate how others play the class but bring your own style. 5. Remember... Chayna is always right... She is always right... Ok... I'm teasing about number 5. The real one is... 5. There are no ala carte subclasses. You can't pick and choose spells and abilities from the Druid subclasses so you will have to trade things off and take the bad with the good.

Kaku99

03-29-2007, 11:54 AM

I agree with the OP. Furies and Wardens aren't balanced. Numerous suggestions have been made to the devs on how to fix the problem and they have been by and large ignored. If you are starting out as a new healer and you want to play a druid, do yourself a favor and roll a fury. I plan on betraying my 70 warden to fury. I don't have the patence to wait until the devs wake up and realize their mistakes.

Fearless00

03-31-2007, 07:15 AM

I dont agree with this at all. My main character is a Warden on Nagafen. And I will out heal a fury any day of the week As for spike damage you just have to know how to use your heals right. you have a couple of fast cast and a couple of slower cast. If the tank takes a big hit you cast the fast just to give him a slight infusion while you are casting the slightly slower but larger heals. You have the tree and if you place it properly it will not die from an ae. IE as your tank pulls you drop the tree and run forward. With a warden that has heal crit aa's and gear with heal crit, manastone and a good FT I can practically heal forever. I have grouped with loads of people that complain that furys just want to sit back and nuke and scream for parses.....and are in the middle of casting that nuke when the tank takes that spike damage you are talking about and the fury starts to heal but its too late and the tank goes down followed by everyone else and group wipes. Your primary job as a warden or fury or any healer class is to HEAL ....damage is secondary to that....dps is why we have assassins and wizards etc etc. If you want to dps...roll an assassin or some other T1 dpser. If you want to heal then roll one of the many priest classes. This is not just my opinion this is feedback I get on a daily basis from tons of people. The general consensus is....Wardens are superior healers. If they know what they are doing.

FreaklyCreak

04-01-2007, 02:03 AM

I'm sorry, no, I can't ever say that one class is ever better then the other. But I can say I really do love my class and here is why i won't betray.(Take into consideration that this is with my AAs in mind.)I love sandstorm, defence for power cost, thats ok by me with all the freaking flowthought i get from maxed spirit of the bat. Speak of spirit of the bat, I can add slightly more avoidance power and a large mana regen on a member of my group(raid or reg grouping its useful) at any time with no recast wait.Spores- 12% chance on any type of damage hit that the tank will get a heal with NO power cost.I'd take evac over invis ANY day. So many freaking mobs see invis that its nearly useless in most zones. Heck alot of KOS zones have mobs where every other mob will see invis on purpose just to prevent skiping the content.45% SoW, not just is it useful around normal zones, but if we don't have a bard then it makes it really easy to train around without one. Since mounts don't work in instances. Who needs cheatah really, just /yell or don't engage in combat.Elemental ward, man do i love this thing. Keeps mages and scouts alive for the first tick of alot of AE dots so that allows me to get my cure off. If you see a mob with a mist cloud forming at his feet when he casts, hit this spell because its a elemental nuking wizzie.I really really can go on, I just don't feel like it right now. I can see only one aspect of this that I'd like to change. I want either a STR buff that comes on protector of the forest(wolf form spell line) and/or larger base damage from my nukes. Only way I can really put out damage ATM is with alot of casting proc gear. If we got the STR buff I'd go half melee warden and half STA line & stuff from the line that upgrades spores and spirit of the bat. Also, 300 more mit on protection of the Oak wouldn't really hurt either. Seriosly we should be able to give more mit to the mit(without spam curing trama) then a offensive healer like our counter parts fury.... Other then that I am really really happy with my class.

Crimson Dragon

04-01-2007, 04:59 AM

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote>In short, even though I've betrayed, I'd like to see balance in the game, and atm having seen both sides of the coin, I can honestly conclude the Fury class is - in the vast, vast, majority of situations, better than the Warden class. The only use of a Warden is in the MT group on a raid where I'd concede they're more useful than a Fury. In any solo or group situation, Fury wins hands down. In any role on a raid outside the MT group, Fury wins hands down. For the sheer fun on unleashing call of storms on a mass of mobs - Fury wins hands down. If you can afford to betray, trust me, you won't regret it.</blockquote>raid utility. ok. though i wouldn't totally discredit a warden outside the tank group. call of storms. ok. i'm sure it's tons of fun. thanks for rubbing it in. group? meh. i'd call it even. solo... strongly disagree, but i judge on difficulty, not speed. so, when you say "better" do you mean in terms of efficiency (kills per time period of solo mobs) or difficulty? even with a (one) root, i don't think a fury can touch the difficulty of encounter that wardens can.

RoXx

04-01-2007, 07:46 AM

<cite>Oakum wrote:</cite><blockquote>With diminishing returns how important are the warden wisdom buffs and the resist they give to the group? Situational, but furies win with their Int buffs (always needed for mage dps grp)The extra self mit buff a warden has is the only way we are really more defensive then fury's. How is that any good when the fury's dps is so much higher that they still solo better then us and now have a root also to keep mobs at bay? The mit/focus buff we have is nice for soloing, if you go the for the respective aa. Not near balanced to the furies dps thoughWho can use a two handed sword in the game, the nuking fury or the meleeing warden? this is bugging the hell of me, and everyone should /bug that we cant use two handed swords when we are a melee classWhats more defensive and useful. The fury's urchin which stuns them or our hirephantic genisis which stuns us? If you had a choice of which spell to cast that would stun you, which would help a tank more? Situational, I sometimes use advent only to feed some power to tank while healing. Most of the time Urchin wins thoughWhich druid has more gear available for their (since EoF anyway) DPS styles. Is there more druid gear with int and procs off of spells or str with procs off of melee? this is also bugging the hell out of me. First they make us go melee in eof tree, then they dont give us the gear required. [Removed for Content]? (and yes I know you can take some fabled bruiser gear, but Im talking about EoF leg/fabled sets)Who handles spike damage better, the fury or warden? furies, unless the warden is better preparedPact of the Cheetah can allow training to "safe" spots in a zone even if a group member gets put in combat accidently while our ward is only good for mobs which do heat/cold damage so w. again situational, though pact is a lot nicer when surprise attacked.Which is more useful, group invis or evac? Which saves more time. Using invis and pact of the cheetah to train through catacombs to get to the upper levels or fightiing every mob in the way to get to the top? grp invis. NO doubt. With eof you can even get items or god spells that gives you evac. Grp invis is not easily obtained thoughWho spends more, fury's getting evac roots/items or wardens buying invis totems? I must have bought like 10000 invis totems so far, and still need themWhich is more useful, BITF or Tunares watch? tunares watch can be useful in extremely rare cases, but we're not talking about those cases now. everytime else, BITF owns itIf a raid force gets geared up to the point where only two healers were needed in the MT group who would be asked not to go? The templer, the mystic/defiler or the warden? Would the fury be asked to go and the warden put in his/her spot in a DPS group? furies are the best dps grp healer. wardens sometimes get their chance in MT grp, but shaman and cleric is always preferedIts just not a smart thing to look at a few positives and bury our heads in the sand. We are not balanced. We are not more "defensive" then fury's except in our self buffs. We just lack all the offensive buffs the fury have. We can not do the same melee DPS as the Fury can do spell DPS and we use a whole lot more power if melee DPS'ing so our efficiency goes out the window. The "wardens are defensive and furies are offensive" were ment for release. Now after a lot of time, I dont think its true at all. We have the sandstorm spell that is bugged and doesnt work at all (not even the defense bonus seems to give significant damage reduction). Furies now got root, which is all they needed to become a healing wizard. Being a warden is fun but I am disappointed at the way the class has been degraded by default in comparison to other healers in the last 2 or 3 expansions. They have all been improved in various ways while the warden has just got more of the same. Many think we should be happy with just healing and not compare our DPS, buffs, debuffs, and utility with other healers. But that is balance. We shouldnt have the exact same abilities as our counterparts, we should have different but EQUIVILANT abilities. While we do have some different abilities, like melee vs nuke dpsing for druids, they are not equivelant and not equally supported by gear either. Yes, we seem to be less and less attractive for each big update and/or expansion. I will never let go of my warden though, because I think they will fix us in the future sometime (maybe in a couple of expansions)</blockquote>

iksar hamm

05-03-2007, 04:05 PM

I have been playing a Warden since release of EQ2, I have now betrayed because my guild had many raiding wardens but only one raiding fury.Warden heals a little better (spore + dot components + tree + melee proc)Fury DPS (normally crosses 1.5k if I concentrate on it) is a lot better than Wardens "DPS" (had max 800 dps fully melee specced with all melee adornments etc)Fury buffs is a lot better than Wardens in any group except MT group.Fury debuffs is a lot better than Wardens. Warden got one, fury got 3 I think + counterbuffsFury utility is a lot better than Wardens. Grp invis, emergency run and animal form ftw.To sum it up, Fury is supreme in most cases and I hate it. I loved my Warden so much, but Fury simply brings more to the table =(

Eugam

05-04-2007, 03:34 AM

iksar hammer wrote: <blockquote>I have been playing a Warden since release of EQ2, I have now betrayed because my guild had many raiding wardens but only one raiding fury.Warden heals a little better (spore + dot components + tree + melee proc)Fury DPS (normally crosses 1.5k if I concentrate on it) is a lot better than Wardens "DPS" (had max 800 dps fully melee specced with all melee adornments etc)Fury buffs is a lot better than Wardens in any group except MT group.Fury debuffs is a lot better than Wardens. Warden got one, fury got 3 I think + counterbuffsFury utility is a lot better than Wardens. Grp invis, emergency run and animal form ftw.To sum it up, Fury is supreme in most cases and I hate it. I loved my Warden so much, but Fury simply brings more to the table =(</blockquote>Wardens can do 1.3k DPS. I just dont see the timeframe on a raid encounter where a warden could do DPS <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> This was never his job, neither is debuffing his job. However, if you betray for the guild and raiding there is nothing that can be done about it. There is a fixed number of spots for any class in-game. The warden who is in his raid spot fills this job excellent and is superior to any other class, because its a warden spot. Outside of raid (solo, small team, full group) he does his healer job as well as any other class. Being a warden since almost two years i am happy about the DPS from AA. Back in the old days i was still wacking droags in the MoA solo trial while everyone else was at home and in his bed sleeping. But i think a lot of people dont understand anymore what a warden is.

Siphar

05-04-2007, 07:36 AM

Ok i tried this out.. myself 45 melee warden (mostly fabled/MC/M1 spells and 50AA) and my pal 47 Fury (mostly fabled/MC/M1 spells and 66AA).We are exile so can freely attack eachother whenever and where ever we want. We had five fights, 3 as us playing our own chars and 2 fights playing eachother (i.e. me on fury vs my own Warden).Warden won every fight, with around 20-30% power. No-one used power potion and neither of us have SM or power proc on weapons yet.Thats the PvP sorted imo warden >> fury. Also, i have never lost a 1 vs 1 fight with anyone remotely close to my level as a battle warden.Now lets check the PvE and soloablity. I can tell you for a fact the heal melee procs (12%), double attack (40%+), melee crit (82%+) and M1 HoT's = FTW and i can assume you i can take down harder mobs than my friend the fury. Whether they be solo, group or named.Now I didn't say as fast, but I did say harder/tougher... whether group/solo enounter.Sure the fury seems to have some interesting utility like pact and group invis, but Evac does have some use, and well.. dust-storm in PvP is very powerful, espically against a group.My conclusion, regardless of what people have said,if they warden is AA spec'd and geared appropiately, they can achieve more and be far more effective in PvP.Anyone wanna duel my warden on Venekor who is 45, then please just reply and i'll demonstrate the true "fury" of the warden class! (pun intended)- Bloode(By the way- Gabriel (title: general, Level 48?) who was shooting his mouth off on the nek docks, and died swiftly in a duel with me having 80% Hp/Power. Just wondered where you went to after and why you felt you had to log out? I hope you weren't crying: )

Kri

05-04-2007, 08:27 AM

They both have their merits and downsides. I have a level 60 Warden and a level 46 Fury so I can only compare them up to level 46. The Warden feels like more of a solid solid healer, because he is less reliant on not getting interrupted while healing. The tree will keep on healing even if I get a gazillion interrupts in a row while the Fury is most likely dead if that happens. Same thing with the melee healing proc. The melee attacks do a lot less damage than the Fury's nukes, but again, interrupts will change the balance in favor of the Warden. Against easier groups, I'm quite sure the Fury will come out on top thanks to their Porcupine and hard hitting AOE nukes. At long range, the Fury will grab an easy win too.Soloing I definitely prefer the Warden. Even with maxed out Focus you will get interrupted from time to time and it's frickin' annoying having to recast the same nuke several times before it goes off. Melee attacks are very quick and triggers a heal 16% of the time. Sure, the Fury can get the same AAs but there are other lines that are much more useful. With a Warden the combat arts cost very little power. I can't remember the last time he was OOP while it's common with the Fury. If you're in a group and fight a really tough mob you don't want to waste power on DPS. The Warden can still achieve nice things by auto-attacking.All in all, I like the Warden the most. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> There are a few things I would like the Devs to look into:1) Would it really be so hard to change class armor and such to proc off both nukes and their melee equivalent?2) Please give us a few 2H swords we can use. Pretty please with sugar on top <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Oakum

05-05-2007, 12:29 AM

Shadowbreath@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote>They both have their merits and downsides. I have a level 60 Warden and a level 46 Fury so I can only compare them up to level 46. The Warden feels like more of a solid solid healer, because he is less reliant on not getting interrupted while healing. The tree will keep on healing even if I get a gazillion interrupts in a row while the Fury is most likely dead if that happens. Same thing with the melee healing proc. The melee attacks do a lot less damage than the Fury's nukes, but again, interrupts will change the balance in favor of the Warden. Against easier groups, I'm quite sure the Fury will come out on top thanks to their Porcupine and hard hitting AOE nukes. At long range, the Fury will grab an easy win too.Soloing I definitely prefer the Warden. Even with maxed out Focus you will get interrupted from time to time and it's frickin' annoying having to recast the same nuke several times before it goes off. Melee attacks are very quick and triggers a heal 16% of the time. Sure, the Fury can get the same AAs but there are other lines that are much more useful. With a Warden the combat arts cost very little power. I can't remember the last time he was OOP while it's common with the Fury. If you're in a group and fight a really tough mob you don't want to waste power on DPS. The Warden can still achieve nice things by auto-attacking.All in all, I like the Warden the most. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> There are a few things I would like the Devs to look into:1) Would it really be so hard to change class armor and such to proc off both nukes and their melee equivalent?2) Please give us a few 2H swords we can use. Pretty please with sugar on top <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>I would say that up until you get the bitf at 52 fury's do not heal as well as wardens. Fury's do more dps though. IMO from what i have seen, upto about 60 fury's and wardens (pre AA) were relatively equal. Wardens could heal for slightly more then then fury's and furys would do more dps then wardens. Just not a whole lot more then wardens. After KoS, EoF, and their aa's fury's can still heal almost as good as us but do a whole lot more damage and can support more groups styles then us being able to help a dps group with thier buffs or MT group with their buffs and spike healing. Wardens can get an increase in dps with the ca line but it comes no where close to the fury's increase in DPS. We did have one decent buff inhancement from the EoF line even if it wasn't as good as people thought it was due to diminishing returns. Of course they nerfed the wardens cure lines which took away our only useful reliable group/group member buff enhancements. From one minute duration down to 3 hits which is at best a couple of seconds for a mit buff if facing a group of mobs makes it have to be spammed in order to keep it up. That means no healing or dps if a warden try's to keep it on themselves or a group member.