Templar abilities: Quick Reference List. (are we overpowered?) [Archive]

Ironcleaver

07-04-2008, 03:04 AM

Good solid post and a great start, and really good points. Shield Ally - I do agree this is a bit powerful. Most clerics are sitting at 16.5% block (with a proper shield and points in battle fervor). For simplicity sake we will just say 16% block chance. Shield ally itself caps at 60% intercept chance. I like to think of the outcome as as second stoneskin that dose (16% x 0.6) or 9.6% blocked damage. This, in and of itself, is strong, but I feel things are tipped into "unbalanced" as soon as parry is added into the mix. Now we do not get any avoidance skills, all but for our base avoidance and what our shield gives us naturally, except when a piece of gear gives it's user a percentage (or uncontested) skill mod; this boosts shield ally when properly equipped, by a ton. An argument could be made here that only, and only, our block should count, knocking shield ally back into the realm of reasonable. I could easy agree with that as a templar (though most may not).Steadfast - This is kind of an extension of the skill Unwavering Resolve (which gives 48 focus) that comes right before it in the line. Ive had the line with and without steadfast, but with Unwavering Resolve maxed, and the differance is marginal. With 48 focus, it takes a lot to interrupt a caster, steadfast is like having 100 focus (as an example). Sure it states it sometimes blocks stifles and stuns, but those are percentages and never really land when truly needed. A downside to steadfast is that we can not move to keep it active - all the knockbacks in VP easily make the ability usless most of the time. The 48 focus from Unwavering Resolve is more then enough for most raids it seems. There also seems to be very rare times in which steadfast will get interrupted, not sure the cause on this but it dose happen, normally under extreme circumstances. To add, Wardens get a personal focus buff that gives them 50+ points in t8 but we have to spend 20 AA to get +48.SoH Gloves - these seem powerful as well, and indeed a clerics heal parse will rocket with them equipped, there is a catch though. Like all overloaded heal effects, the effect lands before the heal that triggered it lands, this can skew the benefits of effects like overloaded heals by an incredible amount. Example: Say if the tank is damaged by 1000hps and you cast a heal that dose a minimal amount of 1300 healing and by chance you triggered a single overloaded healing item (350 base). The 350 will come first leaving your main heal only 650 to heal, which it then dose. The parser then records overloaded as healing 350 and your heal at 650. This is skewing the report - on the other hand, if the tank is damaged for 2000hps and the same heals went off, the numbers wouldn't be skewed at all. I wanted to explain this as it's rarely if ever brought forward and explained. The gloves also have a base trigger chance of less then once per minute.SoH Chain Helm - This is powerful. The reason why this is more powerful over the gloves is that the effect on the gloves is instant (plus a HoT) and most of the healing is wasted but the wards given from this hat are persistent for a short period of time and are at an amount exceeding most healing classes spot heal amounts. The easy fix here is to make them leather for all to use, though I'm going to have to assume they were made chain for a reason. There seems to be several items in the game that trigger wards on the casting of a healing spell ranging from 300 to 450 to 750 to 1500. Perhaps 1500 was too much of a leap, perhaps 1000 would be better?A note on these two items from Hate, they seem to be extremely rare, balancing their power a pinch. My weekly raid group has fought this Named 16 times now and we have only seen the hat once and the gloves have yet to show.Templar's Repent - templars needed a way to deal with spike damage, specially with how hard (80+) mobs are hitting these days. Repent gives us the breathing room to get our other longer casting reactives back up on the tank. It dose seem a bit powerful, even to me, but with a 30s recast and shaman wards still very much more powerful (including the defilers special that can land easily for over 10k), it seems to balance out; specially since most templars do not load-up on +heal items as they do almost nothing for our main healing spells. The downside is that this takes away from the druid healing due to stacking orders, but I do not have a solution for that issue.Inquisitor (mythical changes) - it will be interesting how this plays out.Druids - I also agree that they seem about "right". They do get nice heals that cast quite quickly, an incredible about of gear in which to choose from (which we could use as well as clerics, but it seems that this issue has been addressed), a good number of nukes boosting their dps (all with respectable casing times), the ability to boost their res'es and death blockers and some heals though AAs, and good out of combat utility. Like I said, they seem right on.Shaman - I wouldn't call warding "healing power" but for all intense and purposes, we will say warding is healing. Defiles have the exact same spot heals as a templar, from my own research, but their wards seem to be huge, sometimes leaving very little left-over damage for the other healing classes to heal. Soulward to me seems extremely powerful, landing in raids for upwards of 18k. Though powerful, shaman seem to be balanced enough. My only gripe with shaman is that they have, and always will get, the temp healing buffs from the other classes (Gravitas and Coercive healing) boosting their wards even further. It makes sense, and I support it, but it would be nice to get some buff love'age sometimes heh.

LardLord

07-04-2008, 04:35 AM

About Shield Ally - I think, along the lines of what you suggested, that adornments, food/drink, special shields like the Guard of Drelikus, and other items that boost our avoidance above what is typical for a priest have made Shield Ally far too powerful, at least in raiding. When the AA was designed in the developement of KoS, I don't think the developers took any of those things into consideration at all (how could they?). As it is now, you have Clerics blocking huge amounts of damage with it, and I don't beleive we are lacking enough in other areas for that to make sense from a balance perspective.About Steadfast - When I listed this ability, I had specific high-end raid encounters in mind. For instance, I doubt it is even possible to kill Byzola without at least one or two Clerics with this AA. And if you have four, the fight becomes almost trivial (at least compared to what it is with just one or two Steadfast people). Considering that not only Byzola, but also the second hardest instanced mob in the game, Trakanon, is a lot easier with Steadfast, I think that's enough to call the ability overpowered. SoH Gloves and Hat - The procs on each of these items can account for 20-30% of a Cleric's healing. Combined, they are essentially a 50% boost to healing power that is completely unavailable to Druids. I would definitely call that overpowered. Repent - I listed this ability because it is, as far as I can tell, by far the most powerful of the healers' level 80 specials. It is really an amazing ability for keeping a tank alive.Druids - I'm not sure I'd say Druids are right where they should be, but I can't immediately think of an ability they have that I would considering nerfing. They (especially Wardens) could use some new buffs to make them more desirable on raids. They used to be far superior to Clerics and Shaman at AE healing, but now we have so many group heal procs available, that the difference is much less significant.Shaman - Wards are inherently more powerful than regens and reactives because they absorb the damage, preventing players who would otherwise be one-shotted from dying. They also are 100% efficient, and the +toheals cap is much higher for them. At one point in the past, I believe wards, regens, and reactives were all fairly well balanced, but a number of factors have unbalanced them as the game has progressed. For one, as the mobs have gotten more difficult with each expansion, they have, as a rule, hit harder, not more quickly. This obviously shifts the balance of power towards wards. Also, as I mentioned above, the strength of regens (AE healing) has been rendered far less significant with all the group heal procs. It's compounded by the fact that the Defiler mythical adds heals to their primary wards, giving them an extra chance to proc those group heals. I'll also briefly explain why I listed Ancient Shroud as an overpowered Defiler spell. On their mit buff (all priest get a group mit buff, but they each have different effects) Defilers get a ward against around 600 points of magic damage that regens every six seconds. On magic AE fights, this will often account for around 30% of the Defiler's heal parse. This is an entirely passive ability that all Defilers get! It's ridiculous, heh.It's the middle of the night...appologies in advance if this post makes no sense <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

rollandheat

07-04-2008, 09:03 AM

Come on, all classes have some bonuses.With warden epic, you dont need to worry about power anymore. Inquisition is also very powerful AOE heal. SoH items. How many people have gloves? And the helm. Helm is making 10% of my heals on RAID. How did you get the 20-30%? Repent was very needed for templar with incredible casting times when recasting reactives. As for shield ally. Look how many damage stops your stoneskin. With dirge, combined stop is like 15-20%. I.e. 9%/each and it should be 14% for templar. So the boost of shield ally is restoring balance. spell description 14 (skin)+9(ally) = real situation 9(skin)+14(ally) <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" />I dont think any healer class is overpowered. And after they fix inquiz epic, he will be good again <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" />

LardLord

07-04-2008, 02:10 PM

<cite>rollandheat wrote:</cite><blockquote>SoH items. How many people have gloves? And the helm. Helm is making 10% of my heals on RAID. How did you get the 20-30%?</blockquote>While they are rare drops, that doesn't change the fact that they're available (at least to the lucky/persistent) to Clerics and completely unavailable to Druids. I got the 20-30% number from what has been widely reported and from what I've seen the hat heal for our Mystic. On Trakanon last time, Hateshield made up 22% of his healing.I'd disagree that Inquisition or the Warden epic are all that powerful. For Wardens on raids in the MT group, there's plenty of power, even without any mana procs. Even in different situations, any healer can have limitless power by just swapping on 2-3 manawell proc items. Inquisition, most of the time, just heals damage that would have been healed anyway (similarly to the Templar proc heals), and it's often resisted. It's not something like Repent that saves the tank and prevents a wipe. Not to mention the fact that it only heals people within 20m of the mob, and on difficult fights like Tangrin, you often don't have many people that close (while they still take considerable damage from 20m+ away).

Arielle Nightshade

07-05-2008, 05:46 AM

Ironcleaver knows for a fact I don't believe that Wardens are 'just right' when it comes to raiding or higher end game content. We do have good heals, agreed - but they are 'counted' and 'used' last, so much of it is wasted. We don't have much in the way of useful buffs - so are often invited to raid or other higher end groups ...also last. Our Death Interventions are nice (we have always had a single target and group one, AA's if spec'd properly, allow for 2 triggers on both, with extra healing if they proc), but our rezzes not so much. We can beef them up with AA's but never to the 'no rezz effects, with a ton of health and power' that other classes get - so that ability isn't really something to cite, IMO. We did get a marginal, but useful ability with the change to Purity. A lot of the goodness of that depends on the luck of DoTs hitting and intelligent curing, though - it isn't useful if it can't work (as it so often doesnt' if you are not solo healing).Just my 2, hope to provide more empirical data later.

Caethre

07-05-2008, 08:25 AM

OOC."Templars may be overpowered"?Based on four-group raiding, raidgear, and mythicals? So how many players is that applying to then? 2% of the playerbase? 1%? How is that a justification for making a general class balance statement? That is the tail trying to wag the dog. Again.For the mass of the playerbase, we do not have mythicals, we are not in hardcore raidguilds, we have little if any raidgear (I have never been to Shard of Hate, and I have never even heard of the items mentioned above), and we spend most of our time in groups, small groups or even soloing. Many players are not level 80. That is the actual reality for much of the playerbase (of every class).Class balance is (or should be!) based on what most players do most of the time, not on what 2% or even 10% of the playerbase are doing. I'm not saying that top-end raiding itemization does not need balance, but I am saying that it is irrelevant to most players, and making global statements like "class X is overpowered" based on that tiny scenario is entirely bogus.Sure, Repent is nice, and I do love Steadfast. For the casual-playstyle cleric, however, Shield Ally is not a great choice, compared to other choices, and I do not have it or want it. [If some of you feel it is overpowered for raiding, then say just that, don;t go on to make the statement that therefore clerics as a whole are overpowered, when for many casual playstyle clerics, raiding is irrelevant.]However, stacking my Templar up against my Fury for solo-healing instances in ROK, the Fury is still winning most of the time for me. It's close sometimes, but she still brings more to the table, the whole package, for every situation where the priest is not needing to be preventing or healing damage the entire time (which is most groups for casual pickup group players!). And in small group and solo settings, she makes my Templar feel just plain weak. When duoing with a friend, there are no scenarios where I would choose my Templar over my Fury, as the latter is just so much more powerful as a class in terms of the huge range of abilities she brings to such a scenario.I have been giving the same message for years now. Templar does not have written into the class description "only to be played by raiding players, due to always being underpowered in solo and group play", yet that is how it is in reality in my view.So, as a non-raiding player, I find the idea that the Templar class is 'overpowered' to be preposterous. Our class has remained one of the weakest in the game since LU#13 in terms of its abilities and contribution in solo, small group and normal group settings. The situation has only gotten worse since ROK, due to the relative lack of plate itemization from quests and in instances.Overpowered? Err ... no, just no.

Ironcleaver

07-05-2008, 08:28 AM

Continuing the above: Shield ally - To add to the discussion here is another mechanic that has to be brought up. Looking over hundreds of megabytes of parsed battles, a pattern arose. When you pull up the avoidance report of a tank, a few things become apparent, after looking several logs and that is: the total amount of blocked damage due to avoidance and stoneskins on the Tank always level-out, soft capping, in the neighborhood of roughly 75%~. With just a Tank (using his avoidance) and a templar's shield ally - shield ally will block for a lot of damage. When a crusader, or monk, or a crusader and monk both blocking for the tank in addition too shield ally, the numbers change drastically. Both crusaders and monks both have abilities that work like shield ally, better infact. When these are on the tank, shield ally dose much less, due to this soft cap in total avoided damage. There are even rare cases it will not even trigger when both a crusader and monk are both blocking; it's rare but dose happen. Steadfast - rest of the line aside, since its 'ok' to 'mediocre' at best, steadfast is costing the cleric 24 AA points to get. That's a ton of AA points. It is powerful, but dose the point cost off-set this at least a little? Hate Gloves and Hat - I still believe the hat is far more powerful then the gloves due to the 'instant' effect of the gloves vs. the 'persistent' effect the wards carry and their size. There are several items in the game (both leather and plate) that give 750 (1000+ crit'ing), though helpful, they have never accounted for more then 15% of my healing numbers. Now, the hat dose a lot more 1500 (+30% if cirt) so 20% isn't out of the question, but those without the item shouldn't be all that far behind as long as they have one of these other items that give an alike effect. General equipment - I also believe the gloves were a 'bone' for templars as it was proven time and time again plate healers got hosed on items this expansion. There is a leather tunic in Hate that has the same Mitigation as our Fabled plate chest piece. I know it has been stated again and again that all healers can use leather but this is a step back (perhaps two) for clerics. Clerics are defensive and plate is part of that defense, we were given 'plate avoidance' but are being told that 'you can use leather just fine' - well that's a double negative for us. If we pay the costs to use plate, we should get plate heh. Luckly the items dev has taken notice and it looks like the future will be brighter in this regard. Shamans - I do agree that times and encounters have changed quite a bit since the last 'heal overhaul' quite a long time ago. They use to have huge wards to counter the fact that they didn't take into account mitigation, but they do now, but 'ward' for the same huge amount. Ancient Shroud - That is an incredible passive ability. The templar version is a 1900 group magic ward that regenerates and lasts 36 seconds and has a 1 minute recast. On magic encounters this is a boon to any templar's 'heal numbers'. ----- Avielle: A good warden can save the life of a tank group over and over again, don't knock those heals one bit; not only are they powerful their insanely fast casting getting the group back into the green before a cleric can even finish a single group heal spell. You once said that a defiler is the foundation, templar the bricks and the warden the mortar that holds the house together - this is still very much the case. Stick a templar and defiler in the MT group, on a hard fight and you'll wipe repeatedly. Why is this? well, easy, templars and defilers are the slowest casting healers, wardens, one (if not the) fastest healer out there. Sure your not the 'font line' in healing, but you are the 'final line' in healing which is arguably more important. Look at our difficult fights we've had as of late, druids are not hurting on the heal parse at all heh. Now, and as you were explaining to me last night, you can add a damage component to your heals - so now not only are you healing but your doing damage in a single button - that's also powerful. Sure the heals don't always 'breakthrough' but it is there if needed and your doing damage. This is why I'm trying to lay-down some facts for people to compare side by side here; as there is a lot of 'the grass is greener' going on. When comparing wardens vs templars we have the following (as a sample): tempalrs/clerics: - Steadfast (24 AAs to get) - Shield Ally (24 AAs to max) - 16% heal crits (20 AAs to get) - boost stoneskin by 2% (6 AAs to max) - no new heals though AAs, but we were given shield ally wardens/druids: - can boost their heal crits by more then 16% (I believe) - can spec to have their heals also do damage at no extra cost (in power or casting times) - can boost their rezzes - can boost their death blockers and add triggers (templars get 1 and on a 10min timer) - get spirit of the wolf, its utility but it counts on some level - gets more portals then even wizards, also counts on some level - Still awaiting information - but can boost one (or some) for their regens? Sure that list can be taken with a grain of salt, but it starts to show wardens/druids are hardly hurting. I too have been down the past two months. People are calling for tempalrs to be nerfed as we're 'overpowered' - but I'm healing for less and less on every raid. There are a few reasons for this. First defilers are getting better and better gear, including the Hat above. I can have both my reactives up and running as are the wards - a power attacks comes in and the ward softens the attack, then 1 trigger on each of my reactives trigger (and their not all that big) and the tank takes the remaining damage. Regens are so fast casting they can be cast and heal the tank up before the cleric can even get a heal off. Lets look at it like this: - Medium or low damage, medium to long attack delays (Shard of Hate) - Defilers/Shaman shine as their wards can absorb the attacks and they have the time to refresh them, leaving the other healers bored out of their minds. - Huge damage, medium to long attack delays (a few named) - Defilers/Shamen and Warden/Druids shine. - Massive group-wide damage, quick to medium delays - Wardens/Druid and Templars/Clerics shine. The catch: most raids are setup as either the first or the second on the small list above, and the first more so then the second - this hurts clerics and wardens, we want to feel useful but we both have been feeling less and less useful this expansion. The overall issue here isn't our classes – it’s just the way the heal-stack works on the tank. It is time for an overhaul, this I can completely agree with. There are a few ways to do this: - 'bleedthoughs' - a ward will either not block 100% of the incoming attack - 'ward windows' - when they absorb a hit, even if there is still some ward left, there is a 1 or 2 second window in which the ward is 'paused' - conversion of special heals - Convert all special heals of all healers (reactives and regens) to wards - and leave all the true healing to spot heals. (shifting the stack) I do not believe these are solutions, they are only thoughts on the stack issue. Here is something interesting - on one of our named fights in VP last week I did zero ZERO healing over the course of the fight. I even questioned the parse, it must of been an error, but I got confirmation from another healer that he had the same recorded. What did it? the Tank took zero damage, so I did zero healing. Now, I normally have my lotto heals up at all times but I left that for the other templar to focus on. How did it happen, easy, wards and two defilers in the raid. MT defiler spams wards, OT defiler hits the tank with soul ward every time it's up - poof no damage taken. Now, i was rock bottom on the heal parse with my awesome zero - even though your heals come in after reactive, you still managed to pull off an impressive amount of healing (if I remember correctly). I'll just close with the following thoughts: It seems most raids are setup with 2 shamans, 2 clerics, and between 3 to 4 druids - there wouldn't be a druid in every group if they were useless. Heh A lot of the issues over ‘ward proc’ items is the fact all healers are just trying to get on the same ‘playing field’ as shaman, having their heals count at the ‘ward’ level of the stack. Perhaps we need a parser that divides wards and true heals? [edit: cleaned up my early morning rambling heh]

Ironcleaver

07-05-2008, 08:35 AM

Felishanna, Awesome and well stated post, it was clear and to the point. This thread is starting to lean towards the raiding end but it is just as (if not more so) important to look at the class as a whole and from a non-raiding perspective. I agree completely with your post.

Kendricke

07-05-2008, 09:19 AM

<cite>Felishanna@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sure, Repent is nice, and I do love Steadfast. For the casual-playstyle cleric, however, Shield Ally is not a great choice, compared to other choices, and I do not have it or want it. </blockquote>I'm not diving into the discussion on whether or not "Templars are overpowered", but I do want to respond to this statement.Even a casual playstyle cleric has access to the Shield of Rainbow Hues or the Drelikus Guard. Slap a couple of adornments into the shield and add in some parry adornments for your writs items and suddenly your cleric is blocking at LEAST 14-16% of incoming damage to the group's tank, even without a single piece of raid gear. Add in an Adept III Benediction which is enhanced through achievements, and you're now blocking a quarter of the incoming damage on a target without ever lifting a finger. That's in addition to passively adding ~2000 health to that target. Is there any other healer which can come close to that sort of passive boost?<cite>Felishanna@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>However, stacking my Templar up against my Fury for solo-healing instances in ROK, the Fury is still winning most of the time for me. </blockquote>I love Furies too. When I'm tanking through a dungeon like Crypt of Agony or Vaults of Eternal Sleep, I have no problem using a Fury as the group's only healer. However, when it's time to start forming up for Runnyeye 2, suddenly my Templar is in demand. Why is that?It's because most dungeons in Everquest II are designed well BELOW the capabilities of flat-out healers like Defilers or Templars. The strengths of the class are found in those harder dungeons where the damage is flying and the extra buffs simply aren't as optional. In Chelsith and even Maiden's Chamber, we're overpowered - but only in the sense that our full potential as a class isn't really needed. We can coast through most dungeons, content with 1500+ DPS and barely needing to heal at all.Suddenly, with Runnyeye, non-raiders get to see a small taste of some of the types of encounters a big four group raid might participate in - but with only one group. That's because it's not a pushover dungeon and it does require a certain level of healing. Rarely, if ever, do you see groups hitting Runnyeye content with a single Fury as their only healer. However, Templars (and Mystics and Defilers) are in high demand for Runnyeye 2 across the servers. Though I don't feel the class is necessarily "overpowered" in the traditional sense of the word being bandied about here, I'll be glad to put on just faction gear and quest items from Tier 8 and go head to head against anyone who feels the class is weak.

Ironcleaver

07-05-2008, 12:23 PM

Dug into the main warden buffs a bit (not counting AAs): Warden: Aspect of the Bat (single target): Increase AGL by 39, in-combat power by 22, max power by 257 Essence of the Polar Bear (group): +355 Health, +1058 heat mit, +1323 cold mit (same as symbol of marzin) Aspect of the Forest (single target): Wis +120, Max Power by 783 Gale (group): Group defense +31 (has a duration and recast, but looks like it can be kept up) Master of the Wild (group): Group Agility and Wisdom +82 Armor of the Seasons (group): magical mit by 272, physical by 816 (same physical mit as holy armor) Defender of the Forest (self): see invis, focus +49, physical mit +559 Razorcoat (single target): damage shield Instinct (single target): increase all weapon skills by 69 Did I miss any? Appears wardens buff Wis, Agility, HPs, Physical Mit, raw power, defense, and weapon skills Templar: Unyielding Benediction (single target): 10% stoneskin Aegolism (single target): +1065 health, +15.3 to all weapon skills Symbol of Marzin: +355 Health, +1058 mental mit, +1323 Magic and Divine mit Holy Armor (group): +738 Health, +816 physical mit Glory (single target): weapon proc for group heal for 690, 1.0 per minute Virtue (single target): increase STR and WIS of target by 136 Templars buff raw health, physical mit (+plus small amount of weapon skills), stoneskin Seems wardens have more options when it comes to buffs. It also appears that they buff more physical mit and defensive then templars do, seems we paid a lot for our stoneskin. The focus buff alone would save some clerics 24 AA points to put into something else other then steadfast. I also took a look at regens and they seems to have a casting time between 0.8 and 1.5 seconds and only do 30%(?) less healing in the front end (and far more over time) as compared to templar healing - but now taking into account that you can get off 2/3 or even 4 regens in the time it takes us to cast our group reactive, you've already done thousands of regenerating healing. This conferms what I've been noticing on raids heh. .

Dragonreal

07-05-2008, 02:51 PM

While I can't contribute much to current info since I'm still catching up after quitting, I can say that things don't seem to have changed drastically since eof raiding based off what I've read on the forums and heard from old warden friends in-game. So with that said, as far as the healing goes, I personally think that's it not necessarily a matter of the healers not being balanced with each other (possibly with items balance may shift around, but ability/AA-wise I think we're fairly equal). I think it's more the heal mechanics than anything. One idea I used to toy around with in my head before I quit but never really mentioned to anyone was what about having wards have a cap of how much of any single hit they can actually absorb (say like 75-80% or something high like that.. just not 100%) as well as the ward amount. That would allow other healers' heals to have something to work with even if a target is fully warded. In addition to that, since that would be a big hit to shammys in solo healing situations, what if they also went back to the way the healers supposedly were in the original beta where they all had all forms of special healing, but they were weaker versions than what the specialized class had. For example, shammys would have a reactive and regen spell, but they wouldn't be near as powerful as a cleric or druid would have (I'm thinking make it like our instant cast emergency heals so that it scales indefinitely and has no spell quality); it would just be enough to help make up for the wards not absorbing 100% damage and mebbe even make it not stack with other healers so they only need to use it when they don't have another healers' support.I don't know how good of an idea that actually is, and it doesn't offer anything for the buff situation that most wardens are really complaining about, but I saw someone in this thread mention something like capping wards and it reminded of what I'd been thinking way back when. I do know that if you just compare base spell numbers between healers you WILL see warden heals doing more overall and having less cast time and more efficiency than non-druid healers and the numbers on paper WILL say "healers are balanced".. but in practice, the mechanics of how they all work together still make shammys pull ahead and the extra healing the wardens' regens have on paper (and thus their extra efficiency) will get swallowed up in overhealing (to steal a wow term heh) when there's multiple healers around.Also, something to note about the warden's second DI spell: it doesn't get an upgrade in rok and it was a spell we received back in dof. Not to say it's not still useful, but just pointing out that it's been showing its age for quite a few expansions now and I question its ability to save people now. As a reference, with the DI AAs for wardens and m1 of tunare's watch, I have an 800 point heal from it (don't remember the regen part) versus the single target DI in t8 doing 1440 (I looked on the broker to get that number).

Kendricke

07-05-2008, 03:41 PM

<cite>Ironcleaver wrote:</cite><blockquote>Dug into the main warden buffs a bit (not counting AAs):Warden:Aspect of the Bat (single target): Increase AGL by 39, in-combat power by 22, max power by 257Essence of the Polar Bear (group): +355 Health, +1058 heat mit, +1323 cold mit (same as symbol of marzin)Aspect of the Forest (single target): Wis +120, Max Power by 783Gale (group): Group defense +31 (has a duration and recast, but looks like it can be kept up)Master of the Wild (group): Group Agility and Wisdom +82Armor of the Seasons (group): magical mit by 272, physical by 816 (same physical mit as holy armor)Defender of the Forest (self): see invis, focus +49, physical mit +559Razorcoat (single target): damage shieldInstinct (single target): increase all weapon skills by 69Did I miss any?Appears wardens buff Wis, Agility, HPs, Physical Mit, raw power, defense, and weapon skillsTemplar:Unyielding Benediction (single target): 10% stoneskinAegolism (single target): +1065 health, +15.3 to all weapon skillsSymbol of Marzin: +355 Health, +1058 mental mit, +1323 Magic and Divine mitHoly Armor (group): +738 Health, +816 physical mitGlory (single target): weapon proc for group heal for 690, 1.0 per minuteVirtue (single target): increase STR and WIS of target by 136Templars buff raw health, physical mit (+plus small amount of weapon skills), stoneskinSeems wardens have more options when it comes to buffs. It also appears that they buff more physical mit and defensive then templars do, seems we paid a lot for our stoneskin. The focus buff alone would save some clerics 24 AA points to put into something else other then steadfast.I also took a look at regens and they seems to have a casting time between 0.8 and 1.5 seconds and only do 30%(?) less healing in the front end (and far more over time) as compared to templar healing - but now taking into account that you can get off 2/3 or even 4 regens in the time it takes us to cast our group reactive, you've already done thousands of regenerating healing. This conferms what I've been noticing on raids heh.. </blockquote>Are you trying to compare Wardens to Templars as soloers, primary group healers, or (as your earlier posts seem to indicate) MT raid healers? Are we comparing damage dealing capabilities? Against what - single target heroics? Large groups of blue solo targets? Are we talking about how Templars and Wardens compare in easy dungeons such as Crypt of Agony or in harder dungeons such as Runnyeye 2. You say you want a civil discussion, but without knowing what agenda you're after here, it's hard to bring anything to the table. The very QUESTION of whether or not "we" are overpowered seems to be trolling, at least on its face. Seriously, what is it you're after here? Do you feel Templars are overpowered or you're trying to prove how we're NOT overpowered by pointing out weaknesses without acknowledging strengths. In what way do you feel we are or are not overpowered? In healing? Buffing? Damage dealing? I can't figure out what your premise is really, so I find it pretty difficult to concur or refute it. For example, here you seem to be discussing just the buffs between Wardens and Templars. Of course, you're not specifying which ones are group buffs and you're not pointing out which ones require concentration - all of which is information which is important to any true balanced discussion on the subject. Of course, you don't mention debuffs either - which would VERY much skew the equation back toward Templars. Of course, even above you're talking about how Wardens buff more mitigation than Templars - but what you gloss over in your conclusion is that Wardens only buff more mitigation on themselves. They buff the same amount of mitigation on anyone else in the group as a Templar does...but they only buff one SIXTH of the health a Templar does on up to three targets in their group (even without Aegolism, Wardens only buff roughly 1/3 the health Templars do on the remaining group members). You mention Gale - but Gale doesn't work on Epics at all, so the raiding equation is out even though you mentioned raid loot in an earlier post to support your argument there. So what is it? What situation is it you believe Templars are or are not overpowered in?

Arielle Nightshade

07-05-2008, 06:16 PM

LardLord

07-05-2008, 06:38 PM

They should just add something to the T8 versions of the Druid single target stat buffs. For Furies, it could be something like 10% spell resistablity to their INT buff. For Wardens, it could be like an uncontested 20% chance to resists hostile effects, whether they're DoTs, control effects, or hourglasses (Trakanon <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />).Those buffs were valuable in lower tiers, so adding something to the T8 versions to make them worthwhile makes sense to me.

Ironcleaver

07-05-2008, 08:30 PM

<cite>Kendricke wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Are you trying to compare Wardens to Templars as soloers, primary group healers, or (as your earlier posts seem to indicate) MT raid healers? Are we comparing damage dealing capabilities? Against what - single target heroics? Large groups of blue solo targets? Are we talking about how Templars and Wardens compare in easy dungeons such as Crypt of Agony or in harder dungeons such as Runnyeye 2. You say you want a civil discussion, but without knowing what agenda you're after here, it's hard to bring anything to the table. The very QUESTION of whether or not "we" are overpowered seems to be trolling, at least on its face. Seriously, what is it you're after here? Do you feel Templars are overpowered or you're trying to prove how we're NOT overpowered by pointing out weaknesses without acknowledging strengths. In what way do you feel we are or are not overpowered? In healing? Buffing? Damage dealing? I can't figure out what your premise is really, so I find it pretty difficult to concur or refute it. For example, here you seem to be discussing just the buffs between Wardens and Templars. Of course, you're not specifying which ones are group buffs and you're not pointing out which ones require concentration - all of which is information which is important to any true balanced discussion on the subject. Of course, you don't mention debuffs either - which would VERY much skew the equation back toward Templars. Of course, even above you're talking about how Wardens buff more mitigation than Templars - but what you gloss over in your conclusion is that Wardens only buff more mitigation on themselves. They buff the same amount of mitigation on anyone else in the group as a Templar does...but they only buff one SIXTH of the health a Templar does on up to three targets in their group (even without Aegolism, Wardens only buff roughly 1/3 the health Templars do on the remaining group members). You mention Gale - but Gale doesn't work on Epics at all, so the raiding equation is out even though you mentioned raid loot in an earlier post to support your argument there. So what is it? What situation is it you believe Templars are or are not overpowered in? </blockquote>Trolling? no. Talking about the classes, yes. I listed off the buffs like I did as someone mentioned that wardens needed more buffs to be "balanced" better with templars.I also did list which spells were group, single target and self only.Agenda here? Well nothing more (in that post) to show that our buffs are well balanced overall (grain of salt) as there are several that state templar's buffs are 'too good' or 'overpowered'. To talk about the subject, we have to talk about the main buffs between the two.

Ironcleaver

07-05-2008, 08:50 PM

<cite>Arielle Nightshade wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>How much WIS and AGILITY does any group in T8 need? And WIS is a single target buff. Mit is not needed in favor of Avoidance, Power regen goes on a single target, not group (which is why you want an enchanter), Often the damage shield has to be taken off for many fights where the mob reflects, Gale can be kept up repeatedly, but at a power cost and half of the buff doesn't work on an Epic mob.Warden's complaint for raid usefulness boils down to: we have one useful buff - Instinct - and it's single target. You say '3 or 4 druids' in every raid, but you know the common setup is 1 Warden, 2 or 3 Furies...because Furies buff what caster groups want. Just asking in the data collection: Don't throw Wardens and Furies into one giant "druid" melting pot. Fury was broken to almost unplayable before the combat revamp. After that happened, they were boosted in a way that the class really deserved. Wardens are pretty much only asking for some decent raid utility. I am fairly happy with my grouping ability and I like my healing when it's not being counted last.You can say the parse doesn't matter - but you know it does...and the way the mechanics work, it's skewed in favor of shaman and clerics. I don't know any Wardens that are asking for anyone to lose anything. I, for one, would just like to not have to scuffle with another warden for the one raid spot available. And if I do get to go with another Warden in the MT group, I would like to be able to bring something to the group that makes up for the loss of the Fury buffing their casting skills (for example). Raw healing is nice - but Fury brings more to the table...which is why you see more than one on most raids.</blockquote>Not to bring up guild issues here, it's not the place, but you and I both know we ran two wardens for months and months and months, a long with two furies; we never ran more then 2 furies.I still believe shaman are the 'front line', clerics 'middle line' and druids the 'final line' of defense. This is reflected in not only how much/fast our heals work, but also how the dreaded heal stack works. I also believe people focus too much on the parse, for healing, it dose mean little due to the above mechanics. But I think this is bringing us a bit off topic.So we're boiling it down too:The classes 'seem' balanced for grouping but in raiding some classes wish they could bring a bit more to the table. That seems respectable but it also doesn't mean templars are 'overpowered', or at least not as much as people would like to think. Take away either shield ally or our stoneskin and we would be in the exact same boat, at which point we would bring very little to a raid.How valuable is Sanc? how valuable is 31 defense? these we can only look at as numbers since several buffs/abilities can't be parsed in any way shape or form. They 'feel' like their doing a lot, so we can only go with that feeling.

Arielle Nightshade

07-06-2008, 02:37 AM

<cite>Ironcleaver wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not to bring up guild issues here, it's not the place, but you and I both know we ran two wardens for months and months and months, a long with two furies; we never ran more then 2 furies.</blockquote>Yes, but rolling with 2 Wardens was a quirk that our guild had. When discussing strats and looking how other guilds run some raid fights, was when it was streamlined to the (pretty much) game norm: one warden per raid. And the reason is: because of not bringing a whole lot due to game mechanics and lack of groupwide useful buffs.Not arguing the issue, just asking you to not say "druids" when you are gathering data - Furies have more usefulness than we do when DPS is the issue...which seems to be the requirement for most raid fights.That's all! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Sorano

07-08-2008, 04:57 AM

Let me put it this way. When any other priest class dies and is rezzed during a raid, the first thing they do is start reapplying their buffs. As a warden, if I die during a raid, I don't really need to reapply my buffs. They make no difference to the outcome of the encounter, including the much touted Instinct. People keep bringing up Instinct as a useful tank buff, but without the VP 6 set bonus, it is useless due to the +skill cap, diminishing returns, and orange con epics ignoring player stats.So yes when wardens see how much templars get buff wise, and compare it to the little we have, we definitely think templars are overpowered.

Caethre

07-08-2008, 05:50 AM

<cite>Elyssa@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>So yes when wardens see how much templars get buff wise, and compare it to the little we have, we definitely think templars are overpowered. </blockquote>OOC.Speaking as a non-raiding templar, this kind of thing is annoying to listen to because it comes across as class whining from a class that is at least as strong if not stronger than my own as far as solo, small group and grouping play is concerned.I do not play a warden, my druid is a fury, but I am more than well aware of the fantastic abilities of both of the druid classes in solo, small group and grouping situations, generally speaking making templars in those situations feel relatively weak. To a non-raiding player, a druid complaining about clerics being overpowered is making baseless and untrue statements. In so many situations, my druid puts my cleric to shame.This game is primarily about grouping, and classes are meant to be balanced for grouping. The druid classes are absolutely fantastic for soloing, small groups, groups and casual family guild raiding. If you are (still) speaking specifically and only about the minority activity of min/max hardcore raiding, something that applies only to a tiny number of players (even if it is quite a few of those who come to the forums), then say so specifically in your statement, and you might at least have a reasonable case for discussion. But make any suggestions that boost the power of druids even further ahead of clerics in normal non-raiding play, and you will likely get huge oppostion from normal cleric players (and other classes too for that matter).ADDENDUM: Having read your large complaint thread on the Warden forum now, I can see you are specifically speaking of a hardcore raiding (VP) guild. Talk about representing 1% of the playerbase. Yes, you may (or may not) have valid concerns for that setting, I am not a hardcore raider and have no comment on that, but suggesting templars are "overpowered" generally, for the entire playerbase based on such a minority scenario? I think not!

Kendricke

07-08-2008, 08:30 AM

<cite>Felishanna@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>ADDENDUM: Having read your large complaint thread on the Warden forum now, I can see you are specifically speaking of a hardcore raiding (VP) guild. Talk about representing 1% of the playerbase. Yes, you may (or may not) have valid concerns for that setting, I am not a hardcore raider and have no comment on that, but suggesting templars are "overpowered" generally, for the entire playerbase based on such a minority scenario? I think not!</blockquote>The entire thread was started based on discussions which took place within the Mythical Epic Changes discussion: "There has been a lot of talk on the Epic weapons thread, in the items board, about how templars are overpowered..." - IroncleaverElyssa did not enter the conversation to discuss whether or not Wardens were overpowered "generally". She entered to continue a discussion which started in a raiding context and continued to speak from that context and specifically stated as much (how many times did she mention raiding in her post that you quoted from). You were the first person to enter this discussion with anything LESS than high end raiding as your context. You were the player to change the subject to something other than a raid orientation. That said, I'll bite: How are Wardens as powerful if not more powerful than Templars, Caethre? You claim that Wardens are "at least as strong if not stronger than my own as far as solo, small group and grouping play is concerned", and I'd personally like to know why it is you state that. Are you basing it on feelings, thoughts, second hand information, past grouping experiences in Crypt of Agony - or are you using factually based spell and gear stats? Then again, were you even referring to Templars when you claimed Wardens were a class that is at least as strong if not stronger than your "own" class?

Oakum

07-08-2008, 12:09 PM

Let usage tell the tale. I was talking to a raider from the top raiding guild the other day. I ask him what was on their healing roster. He said 1 warden, 1 inquisitor, 1 defiler, 2 mystics, 2 fury's and 3 templers. He also said their warden was just fluff on raids except for maybe dreushk and that he spends all his time curing because that is all he mostly can do with lack of useful raid abilities/utility like the other 5 healers. No raid is going to take 10 healers so someone is going to sit out a lot. I wonder which class sits out the most. My guess would be the fluff healer, one of the fury's for sure. The other healers left behind would depend on what was being fought.

Oakum

07-08-2008, 12:14 PM

double post, lolNow, I dont believe that templers or any other healer class is overpowered and needs to be nerfed. Some just are severly lacking in one area or another like wardens, the druid that has the most useless group/mt buffs,cant even out dps all the non druids and has the least amount of healing gear (wis/str/plus ca/melee attack procs on leather) available if they use the ca AA line unless they go for brawler gear. Most leather that drops is all nuke orientated as I have seen in the tiers below VP and I know from beta that the set pattern is all nuke orientated also.

Kizee

07-08-2008, 12:40 PM

<cite>Elyssa@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>Let me put it this way. When any other priest class dies and is rezzed during a raid, the first thing they do is start reapplying their buffs. As a warden, if I die during a raid, I don't really need to reapply my buffs. They make no difference to the outcome of the encounter, including the much touted Instinct. People keep bringing up Instinct as a useful tank buff, but without the VP 6 set bonus, it is useless due to the +skill cap, diminishing returns, and orange con epics ignoring player stats.So yes when wardens see how much templars get buff wise, and compare it to the little we have, we definitely think templars are overpowered. </blockquote>Yeah and most of the time when the MT defiler dies the tank goes down right after since the templar and druid won't be able to keep tank up because of the incoming spike damage. Now if the templar or druid dies the tank will probably live. OMG....defilers are so overpowered.....nerf please. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />IMO SoE borked this game making it so all the classes heal the same but in different ways. I long for the old EQ1 days where clerics were the best healers, shamans were the best buffers and druids were jack of all trades and master of none.

Sedenten

07-08-2008, 04:02 PM

<cite>Felishanna@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elyssa@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>So yes when wardens see how much templars get buff wise, and compare it to the little we have, we definitely think templars are overpowered. </blockquote>OOC.Speaking as a non-raiding templar, this kind of thing is annoying to listen to because it comes across as class whining from a class that is at least as strong if not stronger than my own as far as solo, small group and grouping play is concerned.I do not play a warden, my druid is a fury, but I am more than well aware of the fantastic abilities of both of the druid classes in solo, small group and grouping situations, generally speaking making templars in those situations feel relatively weak. To a non-raiding player, a druid complaining about clerics being overpowered is making baseless and untrue statements. In so many situations, my druid puts my cleric to shame.This game is primarily about grouping, and classes are meant to be balanced for grouping. The druid classes are absolutely fantastic for soloing, small groups, groups and casual family guild raiding. If you are (still) speaking specifically and only about the minority activity of min/max hardcore raiding, something that applies only to a tiny number of players (even if it is quite a few of those who come to the forums), then say so specifically in your statement, and you might at least have a reasonable case for discussion. But make any suggestions that boost the power of druids even further ahead of clerics in normal non-raiding play, and you will likely get huge oppostion from normal cleric players (and other classes too for that matter).ADDENDUM: Having read your large complaint thread on the Warden forum now, I can see you are specifically speaking of a hardcore raiding (VP) guild. Talk about representing 1% of the playerbase. Yes, you may (or may not) have valid concerns for that setting, I am not a hardcore raider and have no comment on that, but suggesting templars are "overpowered" generally, for the entire playerbase based on such a minority scenario? I think not!</blockquote>I play two healers--a Defiler as my main (who raids) and a Templar alt (who does not raid, is only mid 30's). Templars have a huge arsenal of healing tools, as they should. As a Defiler, I'm accustomed to being the anchor for the healing squad, but for a good Templar who knows how to use all the tools available to them the performance is amazing. Druid healers also shine, especially in situations where there's lots of damage incoming on the entire group. I've also learned there's not too much of a difference between the druids in practice, given a good player. That could be said about any of the priests, though. Any of them can be gauged as overpowered in the hands of an exceptional player.Since the original post was partially concerning epic weapons, I'll agree Templars have one of the best, if not the best, mythical out of the bunch.

Ironcleaver

07-09-2008, 03:02 PM

Well, I feel all points of views are valid on this thread, from solo, grouping, raiding, to high-end raiding; all of these wrapped up into a single package defines any class as a whole. We all have different perspectives; I know the templar class relatively well, having played it pretty much full time since the release of the game. Am I, or my class perfect, no, but I also know and understand that other classes, though their spectrum of roles and abilities, are not perfect as well.I started this thread because there has been a lot of talk on how 'overpowered' the templar class is; this was in the context of solo/grouping to very high-end raiding. My goal was to talk things out, why are we overpowered? Are people focusing only on a few aspects of the class or the class as a whole, and are they doing the same with their class?Sorano mentioned that when a warden dies in a raid, there is little point in rebuffing. I believe this is an exaggeration specially when it comes to raiding in VP. First as I showed above, a warden can buff just as much Physical Mitigation as a templar and some agility, which may not add up to a whole lot, but hey, every bit of avoidance helps. Second, your elemental mitigation buffs, extremely important in VP and would be boarder-line silly to not put up as quickly as possible.More on buffs:The templars stoneskin and HP buffs seems to be the center of the argument. In reality, Defilers buff just as much (perhaps only a pinch less) HPs then the templar class; so I will put this aside and focus on the stoneskin. A base 12% stoneskin is nice, I will not argue that but I would gladly change it for 1 to 2 second casting heals over my 2 to 5 second casting heals; 2 to 5 seconds, think about that, that can seem like a life-time in a raid battle, and it dose.Epic weapons:Two things stand out with the templar epic weapon (mythical), the group Aegolism and the upcoming changed that will boost our reactives slightly.First Aegolism, making this group wide is awesome, but is it as powerful as other classes getting raid-wide buffs? No. The Boost that is also added by the addition of defensive skills, and haste, really only helps the fighters and scouts in the group; and in a MT group, that's only two people. What this dose do though, is gives us the flexibility to be added to the melee-dps group form time to time, but honestly, even with it, there are still better choices for that group as far as a healer goes.Now our Boost to reactives. This will be nice and very much needed. One of the bigger issues with the templar class is that our reactives have not been scaling all that well and unlike other healing classes, we gained no new heals or the ability to boost any type of our healing with AAs. Yes we can boost the trigger change on our lotto heals but I'm talking main healing spells here.Wardens:I fully and totally support that you, like all healers, should feel needed and valued on any raid; I believe you are to a degree, but I also believe it could be improved upon as well. The question comes in, how do we add more to the warden class, which includes the classes overall rating (all aspects of the class from solo to VP raiding) without over correcting? As a whole, the warden class is not hurting, you can solo better then other healer classes, have (arguably) better healing then other healing classes, and have tons of utility out of combat --- but there is a legitimate concern to very high-end raiding, again I can understand this. How do you add to very-high-end raiding (small population) without completely making the non-raiding warden (most of the population) blatantly overpowered?

Sorano

07-09-2008, 05:37 PM

With all due respect, I don't believe you are taking game mechanics into account. Stats like agility are contested avoidance and are not only subject to diminishing returns, but orange con epics completely ignore them. They make no difference to whether or not a tank will avoid an attack, so buffing your tank with agility is pretty pointless. Furthermore priest mitigation buffs do not stack. All priest classes buff exactly the same amount of mitigation but have different secondary effects. The mitigation portion does not stack, so you are only ever required to have one priest mit buff up to get the mitigation benefit. There is no reason for a warden to have their mitigation buff up, if they are grouped with a templar or defiler. The templar mit buff secondary effect provides group hps, the defiler secondary effect is a regenerating magical ward, while the warden one is +290 to all resists. Once again due to diminishing returns, and gear having the resist stats they do, the warden does not need to put up their mitigation buff as +290 to resists does nothing.

Ironcleaver

07-09-2008, 06:08 PM

Well, I never heard of two/three different Mit buffs from 2/3 different class not stacking before this very moment - I will look into this and report back. 'IF' it is true, you have a vary valid point, but it is the first I've heard of it. Diminishing returns hits the templars as well, don't be fooled.Mechanics? I'm looking very deeply into them, more so them most people.- skewed numbers with overloaded effects reporting more healing then their honestly doing.- how shield ally works with the soft cap on 'blocked' damage for a tank, with other classes blocking (not worth the 26 AA points) and with only the templar blocking (very much worth the 26 AA points).- how if an attack is blocked by a stoneskin/shield ally its the non-mitigated numbers. (more skewing) and how shield ally information is based on attacks that are simulare in ACT and not the exact attacked blocked. (more skewing)- comparing buffs from two differing classes and listed them here (templar vs warden in this case) and see that they are almost on par but buff different areas (kinda boring if all healers buffed the same things).- the super low cap on +heal for reactives (18%~) vs all other healers at 50% base.- skewed itemization for most of the kunark, and later, updates.- the ability for defilers to, almost, solo heal hate making it rather boring for all other healing classes.- looking at classes as a whole and not from the perspective from high-end raiding.- agreeing that wardens should bring more to high-end raiding but asking how this could be balanced vs people that do not raid wardens.I agree, your HP component isn't much on your buff, but ours is only a little bit more, so it's not like we're giving the group another 1500 hps or anything. Templars buff to just over 2k hps in total, defilers roughly the same. Templars can dps well on raids if AA speced properly, but that takes Steadfast, Shield Ally and a few other 'overpowered' AAs away; wardens can do both as per our last run though VP this week.Again, neither class is perfect, but neither class is 'overpowered' either. General consistences in this thread even points to wardens/druids being more 'fun' to play, which means a lot.I know I started up a warden the other day, got to 17 solo in one sitting and in only a few hours. Combat is a blast, far more entertaining and faster then a templar of those levels. Dose this change with levels, of course it will, but I will state this, a templar is just as boring to solo at 80 as they are at level 1, nothing changes really. Though, if I had wanted something other then a templar, utility class, dps class, I would of played one, and have <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Sorano

07-09-2008, 07:01 PM

I know you mean well and are trying to engage in a meaningful discussion, but you really need to research game mechanics before making statements. It is stretching my credulity seeing you trying to downplay templar hitpoint buffs, and even worse trying to imply that they are somehow only slightly better than a warden's +290 to all resists. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt in that they stem from a lack of knowledge more than anything else.Please understand this. Our MT templar blocks 10-15% of damage from a raid mob with Shield Ally alone. We are not even factoring how much damage Stoneskin is blocking. If our in game logs showed how much damage Shield Ally and Stoneskin was preventing, I think it would be much more obvious on exactly how overpowered the templar class is currently.

Kendricke

07-09-2008, 07:28 PM

<cite>Ironcleaver wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, I never heard of two/three different Mit buffs from 2/3 different class not stacking before this very moment - I will look into this and report back. 'IF' it is true, you have a vary valid point, but it is the first I've heard of it. </blockquote>It's been true since the combat revamp, I believe. At the very least, I certainly remember discussing it in early 2006 in the Kingdom of Sky beta. <cite>Ironcleaver wrote:</cite><blockquote>I agree, your HP component isn't much on your buff, but ours is only a little bit more, so it's not like we're giving the group another 1500 hps or anything. Templars buff to just over 2k hps in total, defilers roughly the same. </blockquote>Templars buff roughly 6 times as much health as Wardens on up to three group targets. One of the Warden's best health buffs is self-only. <cite>Ironcleaver wrote:</cite><blockquote>Templars can dps well on raids if AA speced properly, but that takes Steadfast, Shield Ally and a few other 'overpowered' AAs away; wardens can do both as per our last run though VP this week.</blockquote>You dont' require Steadfast for good DPS. You don't require Steadfast to be a good healer, either. I maintain roughly 1200-1500 DPS on raids WHILE using Shield Ally and WITHOUT 100% melee criticals or Steadfast. Sure, I can put together a buildout that does more, but why would I need to on a raid - that's not what I'm doing on raids. However, with Shield Ally, a Shield of Drelikus, the right adornments, and the right short term food/drink, the right achievements, and just an old Adept III Unyielding Benediction, I'm blocking well over a quarter of the damage coming at our raid's MT...and that's passive. Am I saying we're overpowered? Not at all. However, I'm not going to paint the class as weaker than it is just to help push some agenda you have here, Ironcleaver. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove, but it's terribly obvious to me at least that you're trying to sell me on something, and I'm not up to buying.

Dragonreal

07-09-2008, 07:34 PM

<cite>Elyssa@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>I know you mean well and are trying to engage in a meaningful discussion, but you really need to research game mechanics before making statements. It is stretching my credulity seeing you trying to downplay templar hitpoint buffs, and even worse trying to imply that they are somehow only slightly better than a warden's +290 to all resists. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt in that they stem from a lack of knowledge more than anything else.</blockquote>Only thing I can add to the mit buff argument is how often have you seen someone ask a templar to NOT cast their mit buff in favor of a single target 1 conc slot buff? My old guild's templar used to make me drop my mit buff in favor of another aspect, and that was in one of the top Euro raid guilds. That's how [not] useful a warden's mit buff is.

Ironcleaver

07-09-2008, 07:38 PM

Well, I'm clearly not calling the templar class weak by any stretch of the imagination - but I'm not calling it as overpowered as many here are stating it is. You can not believe everything you see in the parser, take it with a grain of salt at most, do not live and die by the numbers reported unless your a dmaage class. You both speak of 10% though 25/30% blockage with shield ally and I can tell you from personal experience that it can be achieved but it is not 100% specially when you have to look at the full mechanic of the ability plus the way blocking works on the tank - ignoring this and you'll come to falsehoods very fast.Both of you just took my last post out of context then argued that I have to learn my abilities more, perhaps done out of accident, or not, I will not get into it.So the warden component of that spell buffs for 350~ish, and and templar component for 700~ish, differences of less then 400 points - nothing, and the point I was making. Clearly no one looks very deep into the mechanics and only looks at the numbers reported in ACT, which is find but have to be taken with a grain of salt - we all know this.So, because templars buff for roughly 1700 more hps and have stoneskin (templar) and have access to shield ally (cleric) we're labeled overpowered. Thats a very one dimentional wany of looking at the situation. In addition its also a known fact that defiler wards and templar reactive 'crits' are not reported in teh parser correcty and can be way off from what you see in game - so one has to expect that other healers have similar issues.But anyway, back on topic, no one has really stated a overpowering reason to call templars overpowered. I'm still seeing 'the grass is greener syndrome' going on here.Are both classes perfect, no. Are wardens completely weak as their reporting, negative.

Sorano

07-09-2008, 08:52 PM

<cite>Ironcleaver wrote:</cite><blockquote>So the warden component of that spell buffs for 350~ish, and and templar component for 700~ish, differences of less then 400 points - nothing, Are both classes perfect, no. Are wardens completely weak as their reporting, negative.</blockquote>Honestly what component are you talking about here? Wardens do not buff hitpoints on anything other than our elemental resist buff, and templars get the exact same hitpoints on their divine resist buff. We have NO other hp buffs, and certainly none on our group mitigation buff. Templars buff the most hitpoints of any healer class, defilers included. Please stop trying to downplay your HP buffs. There are 2 things that are absolutely crucial buff wise to endgame raiding. Hitpoints and uncontested avoidance. No other healer class can even begin to match what a templar brings to the table in those 2 areas.Please read class abilities before making sweeping statements that wardens are not weak. We bring NO buffs to the raid table worth casting other than Instinct which requires the 6 set VP bonus in order to be useful. To put that into perspective, we have been raiding VP for months and I have yet to see the boot pattern drop, so I do not have my 6 set bonus. We do less DPS that a templar. We bring less debuffs. All the statements you have made thus far are from a point of view that clearly lacks knowledge of basic raid mechanics, and only seem to trying to further your own agenda rather than dealing with facts.

Ironcleaver

07-10-2008, 01:24 AM

Well, what can I say - this conversation has melted into something pretty sad. I tried to make a post and honestly ask how were 'overpowered' and it boils down to the amount we HPs buff.. Asking me to read my abilities is a way to derail the conversation into almost the level of personal attacks, a very poor way to debate. We all have to look at our classes overall, from solo though high end raiding - if you do not then you are looking at things in the wrong light. This I can do nothing about. If you care to level a templar up to 80 personally, and personally test out how the classes differ, then perhaps some light can be shed. I have agreed fully that wardens need more in super high-end raiding. I have agreed with most of what your talking about. Do we disagree on a few items, sure, of course, but we are allowed too, as they are our opinions. If your looking for a fight you're looking in the wrong place. Telling me I need to learn my class or read my abilities, well, is dumb. I know them quite well thank you.Now if you feel like continuing the conversation by looking a our classes as a whole, I'm all ears, but lets be constructive.To answer your HP question, I have answered this a few times already, I have agreed with some points and not others, what more do you want me to say? Your class is not weak at all, far from it, and dose heal better then other healing classes. HPs are important, but still, when asked, most raiders still do not boost their HPs in their character traits, wonder why that is. At level 80, that's close to 800hps+ right there.I asked our MT warden tonight if she would take our heals at 2 to 5 seconds in casting times and our stoneskin/shield ally, and give templars your super fast casting heals - the answer was yes btw. I don't know, I bet those heals (standard warden heals) were looking pretty sweet when all the other healers couldn't get a heal off, do to interrupts, knock backs, ect later in the zone.And no one answered at all, what's so wrong with being the last line of defense? This to me is just as important as the first line of defense (defiler). All the HPs in the world can't compare with getting the tanks health up in a mere few seconds, plus having more death blockers (and triggers though AAs) then another other class.If you want to only look at HPs buffs (totals) and our stoneskin/shield ally, well.. that's not the whole picture and brings no justice to either class.Now debuffs: templars debuff 1800 (master, plus AA) physical mit at 80, and we debuff around 1050 divine on mobs, this dose not include skull crack - thats it for are true debuffs. 1800 mit and 1050 divine. Perhaps wardens debuff less then two things, but two things is not all that much either.[edit: forgot the 70ish wis we debuff from our bloodlines spell /yawn]

Prrasha

07-10-2008, 01:30 PM

Heh, don't try to talk debuffs with a Warden... they debuff heat and cold on one mob (spell duration = recast). Temps can at least debuff a couple mobs at once... And if your Warden is melee-spec, you can't even keep one mob debuffed all the time, as the recast on the melee version of the attack is longer than its duration. You also left off the WIS debuff on the templar's Corruption line (and if you consider the Warden's small 7-resist buff an effective buff, you must consider this an effective debuff, since it does exactly the same thing). So Templars out-debuff a Warden 3-to-1 in spells, and 6- or 8-to-1 in "how many debuffs can I maintain at one time." To be fair, wardens also get an AGI debuff on their root spell, but it's only effective while the mob is rooted (unlike, say, a scout's snare+debuff, where the debuff portion doesn't depend on the snare portion). Since a warden can't root a raid mob, it's 100% useless in raid situations. And since you're unlikely to root a mob and then go melee it, it's 99% useless every other time... You say "that's not the whole picture and brings no justice to either class"... well, here's an easy "whole picture" way to look at things: Assume you're raiding content that does not require 3 MT-group healers. Your raidforce has a defiler, templar, and warden all specced correctly, and all play their classes to full effectiveness. The raid leader will be asking one healer to sit. What percentage of the time does the Templar sit, and what percentage of the time does the Warden sit? Hint: wardens having a wolf illusion is rather prophetic... Now, ask if you can put the Warden anywhere else. Does he have useful abilities for a melee or caster DPS group? Does a templar? Assume either owns an AA mirror and can respec. If you have other healer alts, even in lesser gear, would you use them instead? (Hint: wolf form.) I'll grant that in raw health output from healing spells, Wardens win. But when "raw health output" makes you the third choice for a MT healer and the 6th choice for any other group, it's perhaps not the measuring stick you should be using. Wardens are 5th or 6th place in DPS, dead last in offensive buffs, third in defensive buffs (with #1 and #2 being miles ahead), dead last in damage prevention, and dead last in debuffs. Being first in health output and rooting ability does not make up for all that. (For the record, I'm not a raider, and my healer alts are 76 warden, 59 templar, 45-ish mystic, 35-ish inquisitor, 25 fury, and no defiler.)

Oakum

07-10-2008, 02:07 PM

Maybe the OP should have been titled "templer abilities: Quick Reference List. (Do other priest classes need buffed due to the strength of our ablilities?). I do not see a need to nerf any healer classes but some are hurting in comparison to others in certain areas, warden being the worst. As the title is, it brings out either a strong sense of "I must defend my class" or "they ask for it, lets tell them what the people who read it think even if they are not templers" I repeat, I really don't think any healer subclass needs nerfed. Do i need to repeat it again? lol. On the other hand it would be very nice to solo heal RE2 with a raid tank/chanter like a cleric or shaman can. EDIT: and its not about lack of healing amount as I can heal just as much as any cleric or shaman.

Prrasha

07-10-2008, 03:48 PM

<cite>Oakum wrote:</cite><blockquote>Maybe the OP should have been titled "templer abilities: Quick Reference List. (Do other priest classes need buffed due to the strength of our ablilities?). I do not see a need to nerf any healer classes but some are hurting in comparison to others in certain areas, warden being the worst. As the title is, it brings out either a strong sense of "I must defend my class" or "they ask for it, lets tell them what the people who read it think even if they are not templers" I repeat, I really don't think any healer subclass needs nerfed. Do i need to repeat it again? lol. On the other hand it would be very nice to solo heal RE2 with a raid tank/chanter like a cleric or shaman can. EDIT: and its not about lack of healing amount as I can heal just as much as any cleric or shaman. </blockquote>QFT. As above, I play 5/6 of the healer classes, though only 2 are reasonably high level (only so many hours in a day...) Templars are quite powerful, but you still need a very well-geared and well-played one to solo heal the tougher group instances, and that's with the help of a solid CC class. Templars (and Defilers) don't need a power reduction. The other healers need a boost, and Wardens need a big one. Inquisitors and Furies may not solo heal as well either, but they have good-to-great personal DPS, and they boost other people's DPS. Beyond healing, wardens have nothing. Both druids used to have a DPS advantage. Then they gave DPS to all the other healers so they could solo... everyone but Defilers got significantly more DPS than a Warden, and Defilers were brought up to Warden levels. Then Furies got a DPS boost to get them back ahead of the other priests. Wardens got nothing. But wardens still had power efficiency on their side. Then T8 itemization gave truckloads of power to everyone. And wardens got nothing. So wardens were left with... nothing that other priests couldn't do as well, or do significantly better, besides root things and run away. Since T6, they've gotten nothing but sub-par healing from new spell lines (group death-save, healy tree, healy fairie, healing-cure, and the dies-too-quick-to-be-worth-the-cast-time wolf pack... even their 50-70-80 self-stunning HoT isn't worth casting except as a between-fight manapump.) Their epic gave them... even more mana regen, which they hardly ever need. So, IMHO, Wardens need all kinds of love in every non-healing area. Inquisitors and Mystics could use a moderate bump in some areas. Furies could maybe use a bit of non-DPS help. Defilers could maybe use a bit of single-target DPS? (I don't play one, but my guild's MH is a defiler, and my paladin is the MT, so I've got some idea where they sit.) Templars really don't need anything. Thus this thread.

Ironcleaver

07-10-2008, 03:54 PM

You are correct, perhaps the title of the thread wasn't the best - I also would like to apologize if I come across too snippy, I have a tendency to post when I'm really tired.There are very clear issues with both the templar and warden class, templars when it comes to most things outside of a raid, and wardens when it comes to raids.

draziw1

07-10-2008, 03:59 PM

<cite>Oakum wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the other hand it would be very nice to solo heal RE2 with a raid tank/chanter like a cleric or shaman can. EDIT: and its not about lack of healing amount as I can heal just as much as any cleric or shaman. </blockquote>Any healer can solo heal RE2. I have been in groups with my brig alt where a druid has solo healed. And our warden has solo healed it with out a chanter.Are Templars overpowered? Yes and no. Mainly because it is a question that is hard for me to answer because I am a templar.We have abilities that can be Crutial to a Raid. Stoneskin, Sheild Ally, Sanctuary and Steadfast. Of those four abilities I mentioned our Counterparts (inquisitors) can posess two. Many things were lost this expansion due to the way the game and the mobs have changed. <ul><li>Power: conservation and monitoring is non existant. </li><li>Mobs: attacks are slow but hit much harder (avoidance tanking)</li><li>Gear: with the gear that is available mods [da crit ca damage haste ...] have become alot easier to aquier</li></ul>Wardens have always gotten the short end of the stick since KOS. They are cruital to raid survivability untill the tank and MT group have the survivability to no longer requier them. It happened in KOS EOF and ROK.But as it was stated befor a great cleric can't keep a tank up alone. Defilers and mystics both have strenths and weaknesses. I am sure Shaman know them beter than I do and that the each have abilities that the other wants.I think of Templars as the Illusionists of Healers. We have amazing buffs and can put up nice numbers. Shaman on the other hand are the assasins of Healers. They have the greatest poitential for healing. That is why they will always get the buffs. Even after the coersive healing change. You wouldn't put it on a templar over a Shaman. The same goes for the fury mythical buff. Also Shaman debuffs are not something to overlook. It is easy to tell the difference when your shaman is being lazy and the tank is spiking.Do I think that of all the healers Inquisitors and Wardens have the short stick? YES!!! I beleive they were left in the dust not by mythicals but rather by their unique 80 spell. Inquisitors should have recieved a unique DPS buff either single or group to reaifrm their postion in the dps group. Rather than a AOE heal that is placed on the mob. Wardens shouldn't have recieved their pet but rather a buff aswell. I am unsure if it should be survivabilty or DPS orriented but something unique that would also keep them wanted and needed.

Arielle Nightshade

07-11-2008, 12:42 AM

I agree with the above post - thank you for being so eloquent.Caveat and mini-post derailment: I don't agree that 'any healer can solo heal RE2'. It's a tough zone, and unless you have a really good tank and a lot of dps it's not all that easy. Your average player in mastercrafted or quested gear (which, agreed, is better in T8 than any other time in the game) even with Adept 3 heals is still going to struggle to solo heal it in an average group.Just adding my 2 to that remark, since it gives a false picture of probably 80% of the player base in any healing profession, not just Templars./rerail ::grin::

Oakum

07-11-2008, 01:59 PM

<cite>Arielle Nightshade wrote:</cite><blockquote>I agree with the above post - thank you for being so eloquent.Caveat and mini-post derailment: I don't agree that 'any healer can solo heal RE2'. It's a tough zone, and unless you have a really good tank and a lot of dps it's not all that easy. Your average player in mastercrafted or quested gear (which, agreed, is better in T8 than any other time in the game) even with Adept 3 heals is still going to struggle to solo heal it in an average group.Just adding my 2 to that remark, since it gives a false picture of probably 80% of the player base in any healing profession, not just Templars./rerail ::grin::</blockquote>LOL, derailments are accidents and everyone likes watching a tragedy on TV. J/K well, maybe J/K. I havent gone in RE2 but 4 or 5 times. I tried solo healing once with a non raid tank and got to the X2. Tried it again with a raid tank but was after a raid late in the evening or the early morning I should say and we had a swashy that kept pulling aggro on the pull and getting himself killed. After the tank died the second time to a big group of 2ups we called it a night. I do have a habit of doing intances with non standard, not optimized groups of friends (I guess you could call it a bad habit) but in both the solo heal situations for RE2, the groups were decent. I am not sure why the raid tank went down quick after the first wipe to the group of mobs unless he pulled more then one group but I was busy casting every heal I had and didnt count the mobs on him and the chanter didnt get any mezzed either or maybe her mezzes failed, were broken, or resisted.