Should I roll a warden for my playstyle?

[Elf_Queen]

My first ever character on eq2 was a defiler, played her though all the broken ward bugs, stuck with her because they were an uncommon class and kinda the underdog at the time.. Plus the whole evil shaman thing was soo appealing I had to do it! I still LOVE the idea of my shaman but now for some reason it's only the idea that I love, She is lvl 70 now but with so few aa's because she was 60 before aa's even came out.. so the thought of grinding out quests with her and aa's is daunting (I would much rather grind with my brigand which has become my *new* main char) Raiding, is not something I will ever do again and I know defilers, many of them, are raiders which is why they play that class. And now defilers are not the underdog but a powerhouse of the raiding sphere. Great group healers too, but solo or duo is boring as heck for me.. and maybe better with aa's.. but do I really want to grind them to find out? Or start another healer and get all the aa's as I level up?I love being a healer, so I thought about wardens and their melee spec seems really cool for soloing, I know they are better soloers, and duoers for their DPS.., But I also want to be a good group healer.. are they up to par with a defiler or possibly better in situations? even with melee spec? I maybe should have posted this in the warden forum but there could be some people on here who play both and can shed some light..Thanks!

[Jukol]

Wardens are excellent group healers <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Actually, ALL healers can heal groups perfectly well, but I think wardens and defilers are two of the best, personally. It's a difficult comparison for me, since my warden is 57 and my defiler only 27, but I think the defiler <i>just </i>has the edge in raw healing power. But warden has much faster cast times, which can be very helpful in a PUG, when some cloth-wearing idiot who's too busy trying to top the DPS parse rips aggro off the tank. You might actually get a heal off before they die, hehe.Personally, I prefer warden for PUG's since I can switch to healing different targets quicker, and I think they deal better with multiple group members taking damage at the same time.

[funkmasterflex]

<p>ive got to vote for inquizzy. just because its fun to be plate and with AA it seems like there's more of a variation on how you play whether battlecleric, healer, dps, crowd control, etc... once youve gone plate-healer youll never go back</p>

[jshski]

I know what you mean about not wanting to gring out the AA's. The same thing happened to me with my Wizard when AA's came out, and without the AA's my dps can not even compare. I started a Defiler just after the EoF expansion and it look me about 2 months to lvl to 70/94aa's. I love my defiler, and i think that they are the strongest healer hands down. I raid my defiler, so as you said i have my AA's set to help out the raid rather then solo. If you are looking to Solo/Group heal and don't plan on raiding then a Druid may be the way to go - They have good DPS and Heals. One of the most well rounded classes in the game IMO. In short if you were looking to raid, i would mentor down and go start killing names and doing quests for AA on your Defiler. But if you are looking for some solo/group fun, i would take the easy way and AA / Lvl at the same time on a druid or your Brig.Good luck!

[Arielle Nightshade]

<p>You didn't really say what your playstyle would be?  Small group healing?  Primarily social grouping with some decent content vs. raiding?     I have to say that I love playing a Defiler.  I like the concept of warding, the direct heals are...um..decent (compared to other healers).  But the complete outright FUN of a Defiler is..well..Defiling!.   Not just the spell "Defile" but debuffing something into obilivion and knowing you had a nice hand in that Assassin's boasting about their DPS parse.  </p><p>That said, having leveled both (a Warden twice to 70, one on pve one on pvp) - my hands down total favorite class is Warden.    I love Defiler, but dang..if you don't have a group, you really can't go out and whack things very efficiently on your own (okok, yeah, Defilers can solo, but compared to Warden, it's s l o w).  </p><p>Warden may have some issues that those of us that have played it forever..would like to have addressed, but the class is a powerhouse healer in it's own way.  We'd like to see it brought more on par for usefulness on raids as cleric and shaman, but since you have said you don't intend to raid, IMO it's a perfect class to just have fun with.  Heck it's a good class to raid with , too - it just could be so much better for that end of the game.</p><p>I'd say level a Warden to about 20 or so, which you could do in not too much time.  You'll see the basics of the class, and get a good look at the AA trees.   Then remember you get Portals at 25 and evac at 49 - combine that with Spirit of the Wolf and enhance that with AA's and you'll be getting around Norrath faster than any other healer class.  That, alone is worth the price of admission.   You'd get a pretty good idea in 20 levels if you liked it or not, I think.</p><p>You already know about Defiler and you'd be able to decide if you wanted to go further with Warden at that point.  </p><p>GL with the decision - if you haven't already made it.   I love Defiler and Templar a lot - but Warden is Home <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Formangenavn]

<p>Personally I would recomend you betray your defiler to mystic.</p><p>A melee warden is gona need a lot of str, and your not gona get it without raiding, a mystic will (they can also be speced for melee) because of self buffs. If you are realy realy into movement and root-nuking (which isnt working very well with melee spec) then go warden, if not I recomend mystic. I have a 70 warden and mystic. From what I have seen mystics have better dps then wardens, perhaps not if you can get warden str into deminishing return area, but that takes quite a bit of raiding.</p>

[Elf_Queen]

Thank you everyone for the very informative responses..I HAVE thought about all the melee versions of wardens, mystics, and inquis.. the easiest route would be too betray but I am still running into the problem with grinding aa's.. unfortunately my defiler has done so many quests already I wouldn't get aa's for most. Plus I have quite a few masters I had to pay for, so I'd have to be REALLY sure Id want to play a mystic before betraying, instead of just trying it out.. that would really lock it in.So you say mystics with comparable gear to a warden can out DPS them? I've always assumed druids were better DPS period, I didn't really think of it that way with the melee spec.What about if a defiler maxes out spell crit, and boosts the spell DPS in EoF tree is that at all comparable to mystics or is it not even comparable..?Oh btw I do love the wardens increased run speed and ports and evac, which is one reason I considered them over a mystic or inquis=)

[Formangenavn]

<p>With non raid gear and enough aa to spec 100% for dps a Mystic will out dps a Warden, atleast that was the case when I compared them. I am sure it somewhat depends on who plays what and which non raid gear, but lets just say they are fairly equal. Do not pick warden over mystic because you think that will give you higher dps. Druids do not have high dps, furys can get high dps. I have heard about wardens parsing 1400 dps zonewide on raids, but then my very casual raiding mystic has parsed higher then 1k zonewide on raids, so anything is possible.</p><p>Mystics also get aa increased sow (40% vs 45% for wardens) but no ports or evac of course. How a dps specced defiler compares to mystic I do not know.</p><p>Pick Warden if you like the whole "protection of the forest" theme, movement or soloing very hard nameds (this takes forever though). I like my Mystic a lot more then my Warden, so keep in mind that I am biased when I say, pick Mystic over Warden <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>