Which healer to play with my group?

[Slaynn]

<p>Alrighty, I played EQ2 a year or two ago until level 30 or so.  I stopped due to there not being many people to play with at lower levels and soloing just isn't something I find fun.  I met a few people playing another MMO and found out that they all play EQ2 also so I fired my account back up.  We are all going to roll new characters on a new server.  So far the group makeup is as follows:</p><p>Monk</p><p>Ranger</p><p>Fury</p><p>**Insert my character here**</p><p>Seeing that I have little to no knowledge about the nuances of all the classes I really do not know what to play.  I am pretty sure I am going to fill the heals slot and that is fine.  I just would like to know which one to go with.  My minimal research is telling me either Warden or Templar with a strong inclination toward Templar.  My group will be leveling almost exclusively together (we all hop on around the same time and get on Vent etc. on just about a daily basis).  Eventually we will be raiding and all that end game goodness also so that is a factor.</p><p>Any opinions on which class I should go with?  Downloader says I have 13 hours to go so I have some time to make a decision.  Oh, bonus points for race selection information also.  If race doesn't impact gameplay too much than I am going with whatever I find interesting.</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p>Fury are healer, you might wanna go with a bard or chanter with that setup.</p>

[Sedenten]

<p>^ I agree with what they said.</p><p>Furies are priests, though offensive in nature.  They can heal quite well in a group setting, so you're better off going with a non-priest support class.  Bard or enchanter are best for that. </p><p>If you're hell bent on going with two priests, go with a shaman or cleric (basically anything but the fury's druid counterpart, warden).  Defilers and templars are the more "defensive" of those (strong healers, lowest damage output of the priests) while Mystics and Inquisitors are more on the offensive side.  For the monk tank, a shaman will end up working the "best" as healers with wards.  Again, the fury alone is more than enough to handle anything that will get thrown at your group while growing up.  It would probably be great to get the fury accustomed to healing a group early on rather than pigeonholing them into a "backup healer" position from the get go. </p><p>As for race, pick whatever appeals to you the most.  There are some races that give slight bonuses for priest classes (most of the good races, in fact) but I would go with whatever you could stand looking at for long periods of time.  Personally I play an arasai defiler, which has nothing useful for a priest class and I would never change his race.</p>

[gatrm]

<p>Pretty much agree with the above, but would add a couple things.  If you really want to roll a healer, I'd suggest mystic- they can do decent dps in melee spec, and wards work really well for brawler tanks.....With race selection, you might want to choose something that brings a different flavor to your chosen class, for instance kerra get tracking and safefall- who cares about the other stuff, but a healer with tracking and safe fall is just cool....or ratonga/dwarf/gnome get disarm trap...another skill normally reserved for scouts...those are the type of things I'd look at when making class decisions- which race brings something to add something that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. </p><p>Bard/chanter would work, but so would another dps scout- or a plate tank unless the monk really wants to tank..given that the other three are already filling the need areas- tank, healer, dps....you are pretty  much open to select whatever you want.</p>

[haawkings]

<p>Hi, I know I'm a bit late here but would like to add my opinion.</p><p>What you have so far in your group is;</p><p><span><p><span style="color: #000000;">Monk</span>- <span style="color: #3366ff;">Meele dps/tank</span></p><p>Ranger- <span style="color: #3366ff;">ranged dps</span></p><p>Fury- <span style="color: #3366ff;">healer/caster dps</span></p><p>Now, if you decide to make a bard or chanter as earlier suggested you would have buffs that would benefit the rest of your group greatly, more then with any other classes. Also these two classes can do some dmg, and they are both pretty fun to play, but somewhat harder to play effect effectively then many of the other toons.</p><p>As for troubie or dirge, of the two I'd choose dirge since the buffs are more meele oriented and would help your monk to not get hit so often, hit higher lvl targets easier, and dps.</p><p>Yet its a small group and with only the half of you then doing meele dmg, its far from optimal. I would avoid troubie as it would propably wreck the group giving the healer better nuking skills, let them heal I say :p While the rest of the group are not getting all that much as with the dirge. On the other side, with a bard you get a good buff for running, helping you to get around faster early in the game.</p><p>With a chanter, your group will have better crowd controll, and it could be quite neccessary since you are that few say in an instance with sudden adds. You will also have power regen, giving your group a better "flow" when your out killing and looting dungeons, so does bards but chanters are better, and you'll get a good helpful buffs. Here is a breakdown of the two classes buffs:</p><p><span><strong>Illusionists:</strong>Gives a spell proc, that does some extra damage and reduces hate<span style="color: #3366ff;">(for your fury)</span>Haste: Increases auto attack speed<span style="color: #3366ff;">(For your monk and ranger)</span>Illusionary arm(AA ability): Gives a 25% chance of making a duble attack with ranged or melee auto attack weapons <span style="color: #3366ff;">(for your ranger)</span>Time compression(AA ability): Improves the casting, recast and recovery speed of target (<span style="color: #3366ff;">for your fury</span>)In combat power regainInt/wis buff <span style="color: #3366ff;">(increases groups nuke dmg, overall resistance, and heals for your fury)</span><strong>Coercers:</strong>DPS buff: Increases the damage done by auto attack<span style="color: #3366ff;">(</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">dps>haste for monks)</span>Damage shield: Places on an allied, and when that is damaged the attacker of the allied is damaged aswell.<span style="color: #3366ff;">(not all that great since your tank is based on avoiding blows instead of mitigation</span>) Hate transfer: transfers hate to the target of buff<span style="color: #3366ff;">(mainly used for raids) </span>in combat power regain<span style="color: #3366ff;">(slightly better then the Illus one, althouh I could be mistaking)</span>INT/AGI buff</span><span><span><span style="color: #3366ff;">(increases groups nuke dmg, and overall chance at avoiding blows)</span></span></span></p><p>Chanters are also great to solo with if your some lvls behind your friends and need to catch up, or that you want to farm yourself to fortune and buy yourself that robe or neckless you always wanted. It will involve some multitasking and getting used to but <span>If I were in your shoes I'd go with a chanter and choose Illusionist.</span></p><p>If you by any means stil want to go Healer, know that since your tank is based on avoidance, a cleric will be not all that great since its based on hits triggereing your reactive heals. A warden got same type heals that your fury do and many of your buffs wont stack, not all that great either. So wards, go defiler or mystic, although I'd say its a bit overkill.</p><p>//Best of luck, and welcome back to eq2!</p></span></p>

[haawkings]

<p>Oh and let me add for race, if you want one with racial tradition to suit your class; <a href="http://home.comcast.net/~eq2gamedata/main.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://home.comcast.net/~eq2gamedata/main.html</a></p>

[Sedenten]

<p><cite>haawkings wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span><span><strong>Illusionists:</strong>Gives a spell proc, that does some extra damage and reduces hate<span style="color: #3366ff;">(for your fury)</span>Haste: Increases auto attack speed<span style="color: #3366ff;">(For your monk and ranger)</span>Illusionary arm(AA ability): Gives a 25% chance of making a duble attack with ranged or melee auto attack weapons <span style="color: #3366ff;">(for your ranger)</span>Time compression(AA ability): Improves the casting, recast and recovery speed of target (<span style="color: #3366ff;">for your fury</span>)In combat power regainInt/wis buff <span style="color: #3366ff;">(increases groups nuke dmg, overall resistance, --><strong><em>and heals for your fury</em></strong><--)</span></span></span></blockquote><p>This is me being nitpicky, but I figured I'd reply and point this out lest someone gets confused and runs with the information.  This is by no means trying to take away from your informative post, Haawkings, but rather just heading potential misinformation off at the pass.</p><p>Wisdom doesn't do anything for the power of a priests' heals.  All it does is increase their power pool and spell mitigations for other classes.  I wish that wisdom worked for heals like intelligence does for hostile damage spells, but unfortunately it does not <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  You may have meant in your post that the power pool bonus will help the fury heal for longer periods of time before running out of power, but I think most will read the post and assume you're saying that increasing wisdom will directly affect the overall power of your heals. </p>

[EQPrime]

<p>Well you're mostly right about the wisdom thing, though Fury does get a boost to heals from wis because of their mythical epic.  Mythicals aside though, you're right; wis adds a small amount of resists as well as more max power for priests.</p>

[Ferunnia]

<p>Don't forget coercive healing from the coercer. (Increases healing of the fury)</p>