Advice on Betrayal: To Be or Not To Be..

[Rykairn]

<p>greetings furies- I need some advice on whether to betray to a fury!</p><p>Some background:  Presently, I have a 70th lvl warden, who's pretty dusty as I haven't utilized him in almost a year.  He has around 60 or so AAs and just about all spells are adept III with a handful of masters.  Due to recent changes in my guild and personal playstyle, I've been considering betraying to a fury.  Lately, I've been more interested in smaller groups, duos, and simple solo quest lines.  My warden is spec'd for healing, so he doesn't have terrific DPS, but can get by on soloing- it just takes a bit of time to kill something.  Cost-wise, I'm not afraid of having to redo my spells as I have a 70th level sage and rough pearls/moonstones are relatively cheap on the market.  Also with the addition of 10 new levels, I'm thinking this would be the time to make this decision. This in mind, I do have some specific concerns and questions, especially for high level furies and others that betrayed either to a fury or to a warden and their impressions.</p><p>Essentially, I've looked over the spell list of the furies and realize qualitatively what I may be losing in healing spells (e.g. the tree and HoT components of some spells) as well as what I'd be gaining in DPS spells.  Also, I'd probably spec my AAs more towards damage components rather than healing with what I have presently in AAs.  How much do you feel this would hurt my overall healing abilities in groups/soloing?  How much of change would this be to my overall experience in power consumption?  How much of an improvement in soloing efficiency would I notice based on betraying as well, and is it worth the potential cost to healing efficiency?</p><p>Finally, any subjective feedback from those that have gone through the experience - whether they are happy or not with their choice- would be greatly appreciated as I'm on the fence at the moment.</p><p>Thanks in advance--</p>

[Ferunnia]

Haven't betrayed this toon...never will, been with it since about release, so I can tell ya a bit.Since wardens are up in arms about the crappiness of their 80 spell, which is a heal, and they seem to feel it's worthless, there isn't as huge a difference in our healing as some would think. When the AA switching comes out this class will be very powerful IMO, with the ability to go from 2K+ dpsing to nearly topping zonewide healing parses (a couple of the furies I know that raid are almost always second or third placed in healing parses as it is on their raids). It's a fun class to solo as, unless root/nuking will bore you silly. Very powerful nuking, with crits upward of 8k on properly debuffed mobs...Now the bad...There are like 1,972,312,981,724 furies these days it seems, most raid guilds aren't recruiting for furies like they occasionally do for wardens, and you'll have to live with the assumption that furies are subpar healers. Furies are one of the most mana sucking classes out there (here, Animal Form is your lifesaver, soloing, grouping or raiding if you know how to joust). For a warden and fury to heal the same amount it seems it takes about the same time but we either use a lot more mana or because we buff mainly int rather than wis we're a bit lower on average in power pool and run out sooner because of that. Put it this way on soloing, I can 4-5 shot just about any blue con solo mob in RoK... that's without good crits. Every fourth mob or so I drop one to about 1/3 life throw up hibernation and regen then animal form it to death...never run oom and chain kill stuff. It's very good paced.On betrayal at 70...it might not be easy, regardless of how good a player you are, there's gonna be a big adjustment. I couldn't just jump on a warden and play it to full potential for a bit, and it'll prolly be the same when you change, especially losing masters and such. Also make sure you aren't using warden specific gear, you won't be able to bring it over (Hoo'loh's, EoF fabled, Some of the KoS stuff). Because you're gonna need all you have to be at the least decent or RoK will not be fun even as a fury.Well, I gotta go to a party and maybe get hammered, enjoy if you switch, hope I helped a bit, and good luck either way.

[detson2]

OP, May I suggest you respec your AA's into a melee warden before you decide. Good fun and good DPS.... Well to be honest I'm not sure if melee vs. caster warden witch one does more damage. But melee spec makes me feel like a Swashy in training with heals!. And if I may say so myself I'm still a good group healer and I can contribute to killing too. May want to give melee spec a try. Especially if your into groups and trio's and duos. Ooh Just realized I'm offering Warden advice in the Fury section... Don't hurt me.

[Ferunnia]

Meh go for it. IT's all up to what he's gonna enjoy.

[Lishara]

The notion that furies are subpar healers is so sad.  Furies are better healers than wardens, if they want to be.  We have two additional heals that wardens don't have--Back into the Fray and Hibernate.  They are very powerful (especially hibernate).  And now that we actually get upgrades for them in T8 we will be even stronger on the healing side.I *know* this from experience.  I have a 70 warden (who was my original raid toon).  And a 78 fury now.  Hands down my fury outheals my warden.  I switched out to play my warden a few times just to see if it was my imagination, but to be honest, I feel gimped when I'm on my warden now.  I didn't want that to be true, but it is.  As long as a fury knows how to play and isn't just a wizard wanna-be they can easily be the best healers in a raid.  If I'm focusing on healing and not dpsing, I almost always parse top in raids (or the mystic and myself are even).  On the flip side, if strong healing isn't needed, they *can* parse almost as high as a wizard if they're trying.  It's a very versatile toon.As far as mana, I've never really had an issue, but I always make sure I focus on FT gear and use animal form to bring power up very quickly.  You can usually even get away with that on raids as long as you are strategic about it.  About the only time mana is ever an issue is if I'm using energy vortex to dps--not when I'm actually just focusing on healing.

[Faelia]

Return to the Pack (upgrade to Back into the Fray) is a really significant upgrade, it adds somewhere around 400 more base healing.  With fray my best crits were about 2.2k, and I had one for 3.1k last night with Return to the Pack.  The Elixir ugprade is also quite nice and can get crits for about 2k now.  This is at adept 3, not master 1.

[Swifthand]

<cite>Lishara wrote:</cite><blockquote>The notion that furies are subpar healers is so sad.  Furies are better healers than wardens, if they want to be.  We have two additional heals that wardens don't have--Back into the Fray and Hibernate.  They are very powerful (especially hibernate).  And now that we actually get upgrades for them in T8 we will be even stronger on the healing side.I *know* this from experience.  I have a 70 warden (who was my original raid toon).  And a 78 fury now.  Hands down my fury outheals my warden.  I switched out to play my warden a few times just to see if it was my imagination, but to be honest, I feel gimped when I'm on my warden now.  I didn't want that to be true, but it is.  As long as a fury knows how to play and isn't just a wizard wanna-be they can easily be the best healers in a raid.  If I'm focusing on healing and not dpsing, I almost always parse top in raids (or the mystic and myself are even).  On the flip side, if strong healing isn't needed, they *can* parse almost as high as a wizard if they're trying.  It's a very versatile toon.As far as mana, I've never really had an issue, but I always make sure I focus on FT gear and use animal form to bring power up very quickly.  You can usually even get away with that on raids as long as you are strategic about it.  About the only time mana is ever an issue is if I'm using energy vortex to dps--not when I'm actually just focusing on healing.</blockquote><p>I'm sure glad I checked out this thread. For hours I've been trying to decide on playing a Warden, Fury, or Inquisitor. Thanks to your post, you convinced me Furies are exactly what I'm looking for that fits my playstyle! Back in EQ Live I played a Druid. In VG, I played a Shaman. I wanted something similar to the EQ druid, mixed with Vanguard's Shaman. Furies seem to be exactly that. What really opened my eyes is the fact u mentioned how versatile Furies are. They can "Choose" to be the best healers If focusing on that aspect, or they have the ability to be on par with Wizzies If the guild requires a little extra DPS on raids.. I can play both roles very well in group situations. Back in EQ Live there were times where I had to be the Main Healer even when SK's and Pallies were MT's in groups. It was fairly tough, but if i focused just on healing and DS whwnever the tank needed it, we were fine. Although, it did become one heck of an adventure keeping up on all the heals espcially when those idiot rogues and monks would over dps ALL THE TIME! lol. I'd constantly Yell, WATCH YOUR DPS, I'M THE ONLY HEALER! I'LL LET YOU DIE IF U TAKE AGGRO AWAY FROM THE MT AGAIN! HAHAHA  But anyway, I loved the challenge and knew my role when in groups and raids. </p><p>Now, I didn't want to pick a class where I have no versatility whatsoever. There would be times when I'd want to solo and pharm things on my own and I wanted to pick a priest class who excels at this more than any other class as well as also being a good healer in groups when healing is the primary role in that particular group.</p><p>So it seems I've narrowed it down to Fury or Inquisitor. I guess the only question I have regarding these two classes are, which is more fun and versatile? And of course which one is needed more in raids and groups? Thanks in advance!</p>