Melee Warden DPS

[Basirah]

I have an 80 Inquisitor and normally out-dps all the other priests on our raids, including furies. I am playing a melee-specced Warden now and want to know if I can expect to do better dps than a fury with this build at level 80? If not overall, do Wardens have the upper hand on single target mobs?

[Valena]

<p>Out dps a Fury? Not much chance of that! Wardens can put out a reasonable amount of dps when melee but the big advantage is that the CA's go off so fast that you have time to heal etc. during the cool-downs. The Fury's have more combat spells than us with more damage. Add in all of the +spell damage kit in T8 and they can out dps us by a way.</p><p>I do think that we have better survivability though. The new Fairy Ally throws out a lot of healing and can be a real life saver.</p>

[Beldin_]

<p>I mostly out-heal and out-dps our fury <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> but i also get constantly out-healed and out-dps'ed by our Mystic <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>On the other hand, i'm a raid and healer-noob, while our mystic has raided and healed since the stoneage .. or whatever <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Problem with Fury on single-mobs is, that for good damage you also have to use your AoE-Nuke on them and that sucks mana like crazy. </p><p>On the other hand, the feeling with furys when soloing is "better" because with the warden i often just have to autoattack and wait until finally a style is up again, that sometimes gives me at least the "feeling" that my DPS sucks. In groups where you have to heal constantly its however much better with the faster CAs <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Arielle Nightshade]

<cite>Shalla@Valor wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>On the other hand, i'm a raid and healer-noob, while our mystic has raided and healed since the stoneage .. or whatever <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote><p>That's uphill..in the snow...both ways..you whippersnapper!!!</p><p>I just don't worry about my dps much at all with this class - if I have a fight where I dps well (and I'm a nuker) I consider it cool, it was fun, etc.   I honestly think if a person wants to focus on dps, they ought to roll a dps class (and I'm not saying that with a snappy tone in my voice, either).   They have given us decent tools for damage, but that's not where our focus is, IMO.   </p><p>I do agree it's kind of fun to see how far you can push something - but it's almost always at the expense of being able to really do any one thing well.</p>

[Beldin_]

If i'm in a group or raid i also put on my healing gear even if i'm melee speced. However i also look at the DPS and Healing later that evening, and since i'm not really that experienced as a healer i was happy with both. I think as a warden you can't ever touch a shaman in terms of healing if the shaman does actual heal <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Skivley101]

<span class="postbody"><span style="color: #33cc66;">That's uphill..in the snow...both ways..you whippersnapper!!!</span></span><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> jeeze your an old bag <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />im glad your here

[Baynne]

<cite>Shalla@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>If i'm in a group or raid i also put on my healing gear even if i'm melee speced. However i also look at the DPS and Healing later that evening, and since i'm not really that experienced as a healer i was happy with both. I think as a warden you can't ever touch a shaman in terms of healing if the shaman does actual heal <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" /></blockquote>i have to disagree... wardens are one of the most efficient healers in the game.  with the enhance spirit of the bat, and other power regen items, even pre-rok i barely ever had mana issues nor healing issues.  in fact i only deleted my warden because i got bored playing a healer that was put as a backup in groups... even when i often had to take over where others could not handle it.  that and i had fewer AAs than i would have liked, am thinking about remaking <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> i totally want a healing fairy at my side when i hit 80 lol.

[Tricit]

<p>To consider which combat oriented priest is best, we must only consider combat oriented priest. You want to be able to do damage and be a never failing healer? Warden is the best at that!</p><p>Of all the priests that get a conversion to melee priests, wardens got the most efficient healing abilities theoretically, meaning that you can keep your healing efficiency higher than everyone else anyways if you manage it carefully and use the correct ones. Don't heal just a little of yellow health with the 'current' 'available' heal, but wait for the small one to come back. Afterall 'in the yellow' is not urgent if you're tank is properly setup. That is just an example. The only other more efficient healer is Defiler which isn't exactly a melee priest, even with it's 100% critical hit (atleast not compared to the others). Mystic seems safer because of wards, but those can be spiked through, too. They are really safe healers, though.</p><p>Then you consider that warden also has the best power regeneration of the three melee priests: Warden, Mystic and Inquisitor. This further's the combat warden's effective efficiency.</p><p>Then if you also consider that the base damage of the Warden nuke-to-combat arts conversion have a higher base damage, they require a tad bit less Strength to achieve generally the same DPS. Not only this, but Warden's usually have no trouble passing their first Wisdom softcap with their super wisdom buffs. This means that they still have much room for even more damage and health buffers (to get in and dirty).</p><p>This brings us to, "Why would anyone want a warden to get in the middle of the field and perform a DPS role when they should be healing?" Simply put, when meleeing, a warden is likely to take care of most if not all of the needed healing when calculating in Natural Boon, Spores... and then calculating if you're in a raid, the fact that you probably also have a shaman... there will be almost no need for direct healing except for rare instances of spike damage, in which case druids are the best for that! I don't raid, I just came back to a new account and only have a level 32, but I see those kind of things happening when fighting Epics.</p><p>On top of all of this, Warden has a similarly effective setup that involves root and nuking, that you can revert to! All it requires is AA redo, and you can go do that too!... although I think with all of our mitigation buff, we ought to get dirty!</p>

[Oakum]

<p>I aggree with the opinion that you will never out dps the fury if you are both trying. Now you will outheal the fury normally if you are both doing your all healing. The fury will be out of power before you will so it isnt that hard, lol.</p><p>Now as to the response "if you want to dps, roll a dps class" here is my answer to that. In eq2 all priest have a primary and secondary abilities. Primary is of course healing. Secondary for clerics and shamen are buffs and debuffs, for druids it is, well, come on, you havent guessed it yet? Yep, thats right dps. Therefore wardens should be concerned with dps. </p><p>Does that make sense or did you roll a warden just to use 3/4 of its abilities or what the abilities should be that is. </p><p>Forgive me if i seem a bit  "angry" in my response but I am a warden who cares about all of my abilities and whether they are where they should be. I have been a warden for 3 years here and was a druid in eq1 for almost 2 years before I went on a cruise and switched. </p><p>Now some raid ability that is not already with another class would be nice but I would like them to fix our basic abilities first or rather, our secondary. Our healing is fine and I believe that if you took all the healing spells from all the classes and compared them at their max (less then 50 health for bitf for example) you would probably find that all heals are equal, power efficiency, regen, procs being the deciding factor in the end on total healing ability in a long raid fight. </p>

[Beldin_]

<cite>Baynne wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shalla@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>If i'm in a group or raid i also put on my healing gear even if i'm melee speced. However i also look at the DPS and Healing later that evening, and since i'm not really that experienced as a healer i was happy with both. I think as a warden you can't ever touch a shaman in terms of healing if the shaman does actual heal <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />"></blockquote>i have to disagree... wardens are one of the most efficient healers in the game.  </blockquote><p>What i mean is, that from the pure numbers you simply can't beat a shaman. Do you know how wards work ? Especially the group ward ? If only the tank get hit then all the 6k or whatever of the groupward heals the tank. </p><p>I a warden uses a group hot it has all in all the potential for more healing, however most of the healing is wasted most of the time because not everyone needs to be healed for 2k.</p>