Has the state of healer's changed again?

[NrthnStar5]

<p>Over a year ago I started up a Warden and leveled him up to 75. A little over a year ago I pretty much shelved him for the time being, as Wardens were not as desirable in groups as the other Shaman and Cleric healers. </p><p>So, I started an Inquisitor and now have him up to 78. Again, I'm having issues getting groups, maybe it's just the 70-80 bracket? I don't know, but the other day I was denied by a group because they would only accept a druid! I was a tad shocked, as when I played my Warden, it was always groups looking for plate healers.</p><p>Anyway, as of late I've been tired of the solo grind through Kunark and would like to group up, but it's been frustrating. Has the state of healers changed? I've had others tell me they've have shelved their healers for similar reasons as well. I play on AB. thoughts?</p>

[Tehom]

<p>Druids are on par now with other healers, but they're not generally perceived as superior to other classes. It's possible some players may have that view, but it's certainly not a pervasive and commonly held opinion. Most likely they already had one type of priest and wanted one that would stack for that particular group.</p><p>I don't do pickup groups very often, but I do get tells for groups occasionally when I forget to have /roleplay on, so I don't think you'll have much trouble finding groups at least once you're closer to 90. Whether you'll get them in the high-70s/low-80s for, say, The Hole, I really couldn't say.</p>

[Calain80]

Yea. It doesn't really matter what healer you pick. Each has it's down and it's up sides. Inquisitors are fine to solo heal a plate tank while pushing the DPS of the whole group, but lack a bit if you have a leather tank. Warden can't prevent spike damage as good as Clerics or even Shamans but they help the tank to hold agro much better.

[snowli]

<p>Wardens are fine for heroic content perhaps the easiest for low end content, but then any healer class is fine for heroics with some spell upgrades and a little attention to aa's and gear. The main caveat is your groupmates have to be well enough geared to not get 1 shotted by aoe's frontals agro shifts etc.</p><p>For raiding the issue of regens being less effective than wards, item proc wards, reactives etc and 1 shots in general got totally shelved and nothing has been done about it.</p><ul><li>No giving wardens 6th place hp buffs in a raiding context doesn't count as everything fixed now.</li><li>Neither does being able to reduce the groups incoming damage by a measly 2% for 6seconds out of every 12-15 if you are always able to immediately recast group regen everytime you can.</li><li>Druids can cure better now which is a good thing, but then again so can every priest cure better now in this expansion. The fury cure=heal are much superior to warden, and even so fury's cure=heal is quite inferior to shaman & cleric.</li><li>Wardens do get a 10 invulnerability for a groupmate which can be very cool when it's up, by far the best thing about SF.</li><li>All priests got stuns removed from relevant abilities so you can use the tortoiseshell ability more now, although you do need to spend even more now in the utterly pointless animal mez/charm to get it.</li><li>The 10% warden shield effectiveness for groupbuff addon is pretty crappy when most everyone isn't using a shield, sometimes including the tank! Especially when you compare it to 7.5% permanent arcane/nox/elem damage reduction as the new component for templars, or 5% crit bonus for defilers etc etc.</li><li>Your warden will really need to complete the fabled and enervated myth lines to get around the mythical mana regen nerf, and sandstorm got a lot worse and the power requirements for heirphants are now disproportional.</li></ul><p>Sf itemisation is quite linear for priests, tons of spell reuse, tons of ability casting speed, big lack of +amount, lack of ability reuse speed. Those choices really works out worst for a class with no offensive debuffs, Combat Arts for dps, very fast casting already (because cast speed doesn't change the fixed global cooldown, slower casting classes get much better benefit from tons of casting speed), capacity to really use +amount well which is absent etc. SF priest gear just isn't nearly as suitable for fast casting CA users with no spell debuffs who like +amount i.e. wardens. SF priest itemisation is good for slow casting, spell dps & debuffers who cap out on +amount more easily. Let alone the issues of no dps mod, haste, flurry, trample etc on wis based items, i.e. bad itemisation for all meleer priests. SF itemisation could be argued to suit templars best and wardens worst for e.g.</p><p>Overall the package of wardens benefits & nerfs might put them in a okay stance for raiding if this was the beginning of TSO and all the rest of the priests hadn't got their own SF improvements and moved ahead again. If you want to play a lot of heroic content, warden is still a good choice, if you want to raid and be desireable throughout the expansion not just when your guild is breaking new content and a 3rd healer might be warranted for tank groups I'd suggest looking at the ever popular shamans and clerics, or furies for solo healing mage groups.</p><p>The warden changes feel rushed frankly and not suited to addressing fully the problems wardens had in a raiding context for the last expansion let alone getting to where priests are at now in SF. There hasn't been any sort of communication from the devs about where they're at with class balance, so worst case it could be another couple of expansions before we get another chance to get any of the pre-existing warden issues finally addressed, pointless cure lines, snare root etc aa's being legacy playstyle only really relevant to EQ1 with kiting, regens only being useful after all other healing has happened first, animal mez/charm being worthless, buffs being generally lacklustre both for survivability and dpsing etc etc</p>

[Tehom]

<p>I won't belabor it too much to say that wardens are immensely more useful than they were in TSO. Are furies better? Possibly, considering how easily people can cap crit mit and that's one of wardens' primary draws versus all the enhancements furies got. I don't consider clerics to be particularly better than wardens though, since the lack of trauma AEs have generally reduced one-shots considerably, and there's been an increased focus on rapid successive AEs, which generally favor druids.</p><p>For what it's worth, as a raid leader, I think of druids and clerics to be more or less of equivalent value now, and shamans to be marginally the strongest due to some overpowered AAs and their ability to reduce spikes.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p>Snowline has gotta be the most clueless player I have seen in a long, long time.  And it irritates me that they happen to play the same class that I do.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Anyway, to the OP..  If you can't get a group with a druid OR a cleric then there is one of two things going on:  Either you're a terrible player and everybody but you knows it, or your server is full of more noobs than I have ever heard of in my life.  Not gonna lie, I hear quite a few bad things about AB and the level scrubs.  The impression I get is that people are more concerned with RPing than becoming shrewd players.  Assuming that is true <em>aaand</em> considering druids got much better in SF while none of the other healers lost any steam, then I really don't know what to tell ya aside from the two things above.</p>

[Munty]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not gonna lie, I hear quite a few bad things about AB and the level scrubs.  The impression I get is that people are more concerned with RPing than becoming shrewd players.  Assuming that is true <em>aaand</em> considering druids got much better in SF while none of the other healers lost any steam, then I really don't know what to tell ya aside from the two things above.</p></blockquote><p>The majority of players I have come across on AB don't roleplay, so you are somewhat misinformed, and even then, the only avatar raiding guild on the server is a roleplay guild..so suggesting RPers aren't concerned about being decent players isn't true either.  There's actually an element of elitism at the higher levels - lots of people demanding minimum requirements for groups and the like.</p><p>To the OP, there is a significant gap in players from 1-80, since everyone is in a rush to get to 90.  I've never even bothered trying to get a group in the 70s, rather I just solo it since it is relatively trivial to get to 80 from RoK and Moors quests.  Honestly though if a group denies you because you're the wrong type of healer it's more likely that they already had a plate healer, or I guess like SL said, they are just noobs.  </p>

[snowli]

<p>No matter how ill conceived or disappointing a set of changes are you can always rely on StaticLex to think everything the devs do to wardens is brilliant. Lex also seems to have a fairly meagre grasp of mechanics, stating things like because casting haste is percentile it has equal effect irrespective of average casting speeds, which is just flat out wrong.</p><p>The middleground on wardens lies somewhere between his boundless optimism and my current pessimism, I was pretty underwhelmed by the gap between the stated aim of the devs to fix warden raiding issues and what we got.</p><p>Wardens can heal for tons, the raiding issue really is what  different priests bring in terms of group members survivability versus spikes and  increasing  group utility and dps output, because all priests can heal & cure sufficiently now.</p><p>On a positive note wardens are very good with duo to group content, as long as you have members with decent mitigation/resists/hp versus spikes, if not, just res them when you get the chance <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> . With my partner's tank we've duoed Epic x4 upto 8 levels above us, duoed first 3 names in WoE x2 zone etc (couldn't quite get over digg's dps floor etc) during TSO before level raises etc. Wardens can put out a uneeded amount of heal, but even before SF gearflation so could other priests, and the raiding issues are far more about utility, buffage, curing and spike survival.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>No matter how ill conceived or disappointing a set of changes are you can always rely on StaticLex to think everything the devs do to wardens is brilliant.</p></blockquote><p>Hey look, a straw man arguement.  How original!</p><p><em></em></p><p><em>..stating things like because casting haste is percentile it has equal effect irrespective of average casting speeds, which is just flat out wrong.</em></p><p>lol..</p><p>I am still speechless on this, I mean I like to think I am decent at explaining concepts to people but I am at a loss for those who are unwilling or unable to grasp fractions.  Someone else with a math background care to help me out here?</p><p>The bottom line Snowline is I can't think of a single post you've made that wasn't a verbose and/or convoluted wall of text.  I've tried reading through a few and filtering out the jist of what you're saying but it's always been such a tedious process that (at best) results in something ridiculously trivial that I simply stopped doing it.</p>

[snowli]

<p>You fail to account for the fact that casting speed increases do not affect the global cooldown period in between casts. Grasp it yet?</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You fail to account for the fact that casting speed increases do not affect the global cooldown period in between casts. Grasp it yet?</p></blockquote><p>And apparently you fail to realize that cast haste and reuse are two entirely different things.</p><p>I'm not talking about reuse now, and I have never been talking about reuse when I've criticized people for not understanding math.  Specifically, when people would try to say (for example) 20% cast haste is a bigger benefit to someone casting a 5 second shaman spell over a 2 second druid spell.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>Technically I think he's referring to recovery, not reuse, which is the 0.5 second delay tacked on between spells you cast. Because of that, cast speed doesn't truly affect everyone equally, since a 2 second spell reduced to 1 second becomes a 1.5 delay if recovery is unmodified, and a 5 delay spell reduced to 2.5 seconds becomes a 3 second delay - recovery becomes a more significant proportion of your delay for shorter cast time spells.</p><p>It's a little bit of a quibble, though, since the main benefit of chaining spells is to get ward procs, which cast speed does help with. I feel one of the reasons druids are better off this expansion is due to the increased available of ward procs, such as on arms and legs, which help level the playing field a bit, and the damage reduction you can attach to HoTs, while small, isn't terrible on the raid level.</p><p>I was fairly vocal in thinking that druids were awful last expansion, and I stick to that. But I think druids are pretty much peachy now. You can definitely make an argument that furies are better than wardens given the number of things they bring to the table, but druids as a whole are very solid in my opinion.</p>

[snowli]

<p>Lex you're missing the point again.</p><p>You're looking at lets say a caster with an average of 2seconds versus a caster with an average of 4 seconds, and saying well if we halve both's casting speed, everything stays in the same ratio.</p><p>You are wrong, here's why:</p><p>2second average plus 0.5 cooldown versus 4second average plus 0.5 cooldown gives a ratio of 2.5 to 4.5 e.g. 1.8</p><p>When you halve the cast time, that ratio becomes 1second plus 0.5 cooldown versus 2seconds plus 0.5 cooldown, a ratio of 1.5 to 2.5  e.g. 1.66</p><p>Notice how the ratios have changed?</p><p>Hopefully this wasn't to complex and verbose a wall of text for you.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Technically I think he's referring to recovery, not reuse, which is the 0.5 second delay tacked on between spells you cast. Because of that, cast speed doesn't truly affect everyone equally, since a 2 second spell reduced to 1 second becomes a 1.5 delay if recovery is unmodified, and a 5 delay spell reduced to 2.5 seconds becomes a 3 second delay - recovery becomes a more significant proportion of your delay for shorter cast time spells.</p></blockquote><p>Recovery speed doesn't add time to a spell cast.  It's the pause after the spell has <strong>already</strong> been cast.  Like I said, this (along with reuse) has absolutely no bearing on the impact of cast haste.  In fact, the only thing the unmodified .5 second recovery speed has an impact on are spells with less than a .5 second reuse.</p><p>Either way, Snowline is lumping multiple spell mechanics together under cast haste and that is utterly wrong.  If you want to try and argue that whatever algorithm SOE put together to generate a balanced set of figures for cast speeds, recovery speeds, reuse speeds, and heal amounts is wrong then you go ahead and knock yourself out because that is a monstrous math problem that I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.</p>

[Gladiolus]

<p><cite>NrthnStar5 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>the other day I was denied by a group because they would only accept a druid!</blockquote><p>Sometimes a group already has a druid but wants a second healer, in which case they'd look for a cleric or shaman.</p><p>Why do you find it necessary to play only your cleric or only your druid? If both are ready for adventure, you'd have double the chance of finding a nice group. I switch between my warden, templar and mystic according to the preference of the tank; I really don't care which I play, I enjoy them all.</p>

[Oakum]

<p>While I will say that the state has changed and druids have recieved buffs, in the overall picture not too much has really changed except wardens may well have moved to below fury's in the overall healer classes picture.</p><p>Yes, druids can heal an instance almost as well as a cleric or shaman with equal lvl equal skill. A well played, well geared druid can out play an average geared, average skilled cleric or shaman too. The HP buffs do help some BUT DO NOT make them equal to the other players.</p><p>Sandstorm is severely nerfed and not much good since its a guess as to what 30 seconds of a long named fight it needs to be cast to be usefull and not everyone uses a shield either.  The defense buff with knockback of heroic and below mobs was a much better option with a 3 minute timer.</p><p>The new cure is nice but the 3 hit proc only if it cures is not much good with any other healer in a raid group or even players with cure potions. Since it cast slower then the AA buffed cleric and shaman cures it is often wasted in a raid with more then one healer. It is nice to have for solo healing a raid group with a lot of AE's coming in but why put a warden in a caster group solo when a fury can heal just as good AND give better buffs, not to mention the cleric and shaman for better buffs/heals for melee/off tank groups.  Why should wardens take the Fury's mage group away from them anyway or a mystic/inquisitor's melee group?</p><p>The best healer combination for any tank is a shaman cleric. Sure you can add a warden to the MT group for new fights for MT survivability but what about when more hate is desired to allow the raid to higher dps? Cast instinct and listen to people with the second or third assasin/swashie in the raid complain how if they were the hate transfer, the wizzy/necro wouldnt be pulling aggro and be one shotted as well as making the mob AE the raid?</p><p>If the new instinct AA and the change to sandstorm were supposed to make wardens useful in raid, they are major fails. The transfer of an assasin or swash will be better and without being able to put instinct on ourselves (like I do mostly unless its a named fight where I am ranging and spam healing) we can not do our secondary side effectively (DPS) against orange con raid mobs and proc heals which of course all our non healing spell are DPS spells/ca's for both druids, not temp buffs and debuffs like cleric and shaman.  If you have a tank equally geared to a warden, you wont need a deagro especiallywith the other deaggros available from fellow group members.</p>

[NrthnStar5]

<p><cite>Gladiolus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>NrthnStar5 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>the other day I was denied by a group because they would only accept a druid!</blockquote><p>Sometimes a group already has a druid but wants a second healer, in which case they'd look for a cleric or shaman.</p><p>Why do you find it necessary to play only your cleric or only your druid? If both are ready for adventure, you'd have double the chance of finding a nice group. I switch between my warden, templar and mystic according to the preference of the tank; I really don't care which I play, I enjoy them all.</p></blockquote><p>My Warden is on a different server. </p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>While I will say that the state has changed and druids have recieved buffs, in the overall picture not too much has really changed except wardens may well have moved to below fury's in the overall healer classes picture.</p><p>Yes, druids can heal an instance almost as well as a cleric or shaman with equal lvl equal skill. A well played, well geared druid can out play an average geared, average skilled cleric or shaman too. The HP buffs do help some BUT DO NOT make them equal to the other players.</p><p>Sandstorm is severely nerfed and not much good since its a guess as to what 30 seconds of a long named fight it needs to be cast to be usefull and not everyone uses a shield either. The defense buff with knockback of heroic and below mobs was a much better option with a 3 minute timer.</p><p>The new cure is nice but the 3 hit proc only if it cures is not much good with any other healer in a raid group or even players with cure potions. Since it cast slower then the AA buffed cleric and shaman cures it is often wasted in a raid with more then one healer. It is nice to have for solo healing a raid group with a lot of AE's coming in but why put a warden in a caster group solo when a fury can heal just as good AND give better buffs, not to mention the cleric and shaman for better buffs/heals for melee/off tank groups. Why should wardens take the Fury's mage group away from them anyway or a mystic/inquisitor's melee group?</p><p>The best healer combination for any tank is a shaman cleric. Sure you can add a warden to the MT group for new fights for MT survivability but what about when more hate is desired to allow the raid to higher dps? Cast instinct and listen to people with the second or third assasin/swashie in the raid complain how if they were the hate transfer, the wizzy/necro wouldnt be pulling aggro and be one shotted as well as making the mob AE the raid?</p><p>If the new instinct AA and the change to sandstorm were supposed to make wardens useful in raid, they are major fails. The transfer of an assasin or swash will be better and without being able to put instinct on ourselves (like I do mostly unless its a named fight where I am ranging and spam healing) we can not do our secondary side effectively (DPS) against orange con raid mobs and proc heals which of course all our non healing spell are DPS spells/ca's for both druids, not temp buffs and debuffs like cleric and shaman. If you have a tank equally geared to a warden, you wont need a deagro especiallywith the other deaggros available from fellow group members.</p></blockquote><p>Very good post, but... raid heavy. There is another, different world out there <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p><p>New Sandstorm is gods gift to the warden in so many cases. Suddenly i have smooth multimob encounters. No peeling, any newb tank of any class is holding AE aggro <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> My wardens life is sweet. Warlocks dont scare me anymore <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Instinct on the assa and suddenly i run whole instances without peeling. And healing a peeler is one of our weaker points. Instinct just needs to be changed to work on casters as well.</p><p>Playing the warden for almost 5 years and raided for 2 tiers from DoF to KoS and was always in the MT group. But i never was a healer there, i was a filler. Healing was done by Defiler and Templer. I was just filling, loads of filling <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> On a good day i filled as much as those slacker healers healed. This was always our role, thats why we always have been the most power efficient healers.</p><p>Raids changed and made us a bit unbalanced, because the others now have loads of power regen and fast casting. Lots of changes to hate and stuff happened.</p><p>I do think the warden will be back as filler soon(ish). If the game survives that is...</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>While I will say that the state has changed and druids have recieved buffs, in the overall picture not too much has really changed except wardens may well have moved to below fury's in the overall healer classes picture.</p><p>Yes, druids can heal an instance almost as well as a cleric or shaman with equal lvl equal skill. A well played, well geared druid can out play an average geared, average skilled cleric or shaman too. The HP buffs do help some BUT DO NOT make them equal to the other players.</p><p>Sandstorm is severely nerfed and not much good since its a guess as to what 30 seconds of a long named fight it needs to be cast to be usefull and not everyone uses a shield either.  The defense buff with knockback of heroic and below mobs was a much better option with a 3 minute timer.</p><p>The new cure is nice but the 3 hit proc only if it cures is not much good with any other healer in a raid group or even players with cure potions. Since it cast slower then the AA buffed cleric and shaman cures it is often wasted in a raid with more then one healer. It is nice to have for solo healing a raid group with a lot of AE's coming in but why put a warden in a caster group solo when a fury can heal just as good AND give better buffs, not to mention the cleric and shaman for better buffs/heals for melee/off tank groups.  Why should wardens take the Fury's mage group away from them anyway or a mystic/inquisitor's melee group?</p><p>The best healer combination for any tank is a shaman cleric. Sure you can add a warden to the MT group for new fights for MT survivability but what about when more hate is desired to allow the raid to higher dps? Cast instinct and listen to people with the second or third assasin/swashie in the raid complain how if they were the hate transfer, the wizzy/necro wouldnt be pulling aggro and be one shotted as well as making the mob AE the raid?</p><p>If the new instinct AA and the change to sandstorm were supposed to make wardens useful in raid, they are major fails. The transfer of an assasin or swash will be better and without being able to put instinct on ourselves (like I do mostly unless its a named fight where I am ranging and spam healing) we can not do our secondary side effectively (DPS) against orange con raid mobs and proc heals which of course all our non healing spell are DPS spells/ca's for both druids, not temp buffs and debuffs like cleric and shaman.  If you have a tank equally geared to a warden, you wont need a deagro especiallywith the other deaggros available from fellow group members.</p></blockquote><p>I think I disagree with just about all of this.  My guild has cleared all easymode mobs of SF and from what I can tell, fury is still the fatkid healer of the 6 (maybe tied with Inquis).  They gained turtle shell and the extra cure, but so did wardens.  The raidwide cure is inferior to the warden divine aura IMO.  And they still guzzle power like a 40 year old V8.  The one cool thing they have is the big single target potency buff (name escapes me).  Anyway..</p><p>Sandstorm is somewhat better than it was before.  The +parry/defense/deflection stats are just as useless now as they were before the change (in a raid setting); nothing is different in this regard.  Raid mobs were immune to knockbacks (I think), so <em>that</em> part of the buff was useless pre-SF.  Now it's been replaced by shield block, which is equivalent to the old knockback in mitigating damage in heroic content, YET is also useful on raids.  The threat part is probably one of the nicer changes.  It's an encounterwide taunt that triggers even on an avoid.  Heroic tanks can pull big and the buff will help funnel loose mobs back to the tank, it helps counter any aggro from Spore triggers, and it doesn't root the warden place place so you can follow the tank as they round up mobs.  On raids it's slightly better because fighters are easily capped on +hate gain and the Sandstorm proc is raw threat.  The root part versus fearing mobs was kinda nice and all but that's something I think I can live without.  Like I've said before, my biggest complaint is the duration, I'd like to see it go to 1 minute with a 1-2 minute recast.</p><p>The DPS group cure is a waste because another healer might cure first?  Are you serious?  lol  Have you ever heard of.. you know, <strong>talking</strong> to the other healer in your group and coordinating your group cures?</p><p>I'm not quite sure where to start on the Instinct thing..  1.) It's not meant to be a hate transfer.  Hate transfers are in effect 24/7 when applied, this is just a proc.  The buff is kinda handy on fighters if no scouts are in the group OR if the fighter goes heavy defense; the accuracy + melee skills help them offset the penalties of their defense stance/gear.  2.)  The last paragraph about you putting Instinct on yourself and meleeing raid mobs just makes me do a facepalm, so.. moving on..</p><p><em>This was always our role, thats why we always have been the most power efficient healers.</em></p><p>Are you kidding me?  This class wastes more power than any other class in the game.</p>

[Fiora]

<p>as a fury, i can tell you that i can solo heal lot of thing on SF (even some hard mode), and for power, proc gear has been nerf, but a figth without a chanter, i put it on, and im full mana all the fight... when i trust my chanter, i put my power gear off, thats all....</p><p>i dont say warden are crap, you gained lot of defensive ability with sf, while fury gained more offensive one, its always like that.</p><p>but when we both lack on the same thing on tso, we both gained it, and its more cure</p><p>the raid cure, if the fury think, its really awesome, just need to think when should i cast it...</p><p>Druid on this exp are awesome, and yes fury got mana issue,  its always been like that, if the fury know it, wear some item for that, the chanter (and now the troub with the new aa) know that, its enough. you cant point fury saying they are the worth healer cause of mana, its not true.</p><p>i agree on something, warden get some great changes, i disagree on the other hand, fury did too <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[LardLord]

<p>Inquisitors are rocking as well.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>To add a little bit to what StaticLex said... the changes to sandstorm are probably much better on the raid level. +defense is effectively useless on raid mobs right now - check ACT, and you'll basically see them never miss regardless of what someone's defense is. Shield block, on the other hand, works peachy, so enhancing that is a much better benefit.</p><p>Similarly, instinct has turned into one of the nicest melee buffs anyone gets. It's usually the highest damage source on our highest parsing melee behind slash/pierce, and that's even ignoring its traditional accuracy benefits. Giving mitigation via a red slot on your thorns isn't a bad buff either.</p><p>Additionally, many of the biggest AEs this expansion are elemental. Ward of the Untamed can be pretty awesome for these.</p>

[Oakum]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><p>I think I disagree with just about all of this.  My guild has cleared all easymode mobs of SF and from what I can tell, fury is still the fatkid healer of the 6 (maybe tied with Inquis).  They gained turtle shell and the extra cure, but so did wardens.  The raidwide cure is inferior to the warden divine aura IMO.  And they still guzzle power like a 40 year old V8.  The one cool thing they have is the big single target potency buff (name escapes me).  Anyway..</p><p><strong>Maybe its your fury, lol. I tell it as I have seen it.</strong></p><p>Sandstorm is somewhat better than it was before.  The +parry/defense/deflection stats are just as useless now as they were before the change (in a raid setting); nothing is different in this regard.  Raid mobs were immune to knockbacks (I think), so <em>that</em> part of the buff was useless pre-SF.  Now it's been replaced by shield block, which is equivalent to the old knockback in mitigating damage in heroic content, YET is also useful on raids.  The threat part is probably one of the nicer changes.  It's an encounterwide taunt that triggers even on an avoid.  Heroic tanks can pull big and the buff will help funnel loose mobs back to the tank, it helps counter any aggro from Spore triggers, and it doesn't root the warden place place so you can follow the tank as they round up mobs.  On raids it's slightly better because fighters are easily capped on +hate gain and the Sandstorm proc is raw threat.  The root part versus fearing mobs was kinda nice and all but that's something I think I can live without.  Like I've said before, my biggest complaint is the duration, I'd like to see it go to 1 minute with a 1-2 minute recast.</p><p><strong>If the duration was still 3 minutes I might agree its not all that bad. By the way, how many non tanks carry a shield besides other healers possibly in a group? 30 seconds every two min is not that big a bonus in any way unless you have act up and are watching raid wide threat to see when it is needed. I like the non root part of it. The rest is blah though and if a tank is pulling mulitple mobs, most dps are smart enough including warlocks to not get aggro, lol. </strong></p><p>The DPS group cure is a waste because another healer might cure first?  Are you serious?  lol  Have you ever heard of.. you know, <strong>talking</strong> to the other healer in your group and coordinating your group cures?</p><p><strong>The longer a detriment is on the group the worse it is, therefore if another healer in the group can get it off quicker they should. Period.</strong>  It is good for solo healing a group though.</p><p>I'm not quite sure where to start on the Instinct thing..  1.) It's not meant to be a hate transfer.  Hate transfers are in effect 24/7 when applied, this is just a proc.  The buff is kinda handy on fighters if no scouts are in the group OR if the fighter goes heavy defense; the accuracy + melee skills help them offset the penalties of their defense stance/gear.  2.)  The last paragraph about you putting Instinct on yourself and meleeing raid mobs just makes me do a facepalm, so.. moving on..</p><p><strong>Lol, Facepalm, so logical a response. I never thought you as one of those healers who sat back and spent their time in tells chatting or staring at the screen waiting for something happen when you dont happen to need to cast a heal. I guess I know better, lol. Of course you could be a healer who spam heals even when its not needed too. Never having seen you play, I dont know though. </strong></p><p><strong>For an undergeared tank instinct can be useful although before they changed the aggro abilities of the tanks some with this expansion, it was good for gaurdians to help them dps to hold aggro when taunts wouldnt be enought. Of course, having an alt gaurd, I know they have an aa which removes all negatives of their stances so it is just not that important for them as it used to be unless they dont care about dps and dont take that AA. </strong></p><p><em>This was always our role, thats why we always have been the most power efficient healers.</em></p><p>Are you kidding me?  This class wastes more power than any other class in the game and <strong>were designed that way from the start really. the dev's always expected hot ticks to be wasted. Accept it, get used to it, expect it. </strong></p></blockquote><p>Replies in bold. Lets just say that I agree to disagree with a lot of what you said. I could be wrong and things do change, time will tell, maybe I will get bored with helping the raid any way I can and agree that sitting around inbetween casting heals is what a healer should do, lol.</p><p>Its funny how we can blow things out of proportion when we want to isnt it, lol.</p><p>The warden is not the healer class it could be. They can do heroic content just fine but I would not say they are any better or worse off then they were in comparison to the other healers are before and after the expansion.  Long story short, lol. We were buffed and nerfed, they were buffed and nerfed (granted in minor ways mostly for the nerfs).</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><em>This was always our role, thats why we always have been the most power efficient healers.</em></p><p>Are you kidding me? This class wastes more power than any other class in the game.</p></blockquote><p>Timewarp. Go back to Shattered Lands, or DoF and even KoS. All group or raid healers similar itemized. They guy who always had a bit power for one more heal was the warden while Clerics and Shaman where oom. It didnt matter if ticks got lost. We usually have been last standing/functioning healer <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>This wasnt because wardens slacked, this was because of our role and the rather high regenration rate of power. Back then Clerics and Shaman only casted reactives and wards to not waste their power, never any direct heal. In raids they only could stop the bar going down, it was us who filled up to green. The only exception have been mobs with incredible spikes, then all healers did button mash heals till the mob was down.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The warden is not the healer class it could be. They can do heroic content just fine but I would not say they are any better or worse off then they were in comparison to the other healers are before and after the expansion. Long story short, lol. We were buffed and nerfed, they were buffed and nerfed (granted in minor ways mostly for the nerfs).</p></blockquote><p>G1 once was guardian, defiler, templer, warden, chanter, bard or swashy.</p><p>Since Defiler and Templer are now able to use their direct heals the warden is useless. Melee DPS is better warded by a mystic and mage dps maybe better healed by a fury. Not exactly sure, since i am not up to date with raids.</p><p>Our epic wepaon and the grandmaster spell from repercussions still hint to power regeneration. We are only in part 1 of SF. There usually will be more and harder content. We also know the current producer is an oldschool dev who was involved with EQ2 pre release. Due to the many ability mods and crits the game moves a bit back to where it was. Anyone now is at 100% crit, which is not exactly a buff but streamlining. Also the mobs seem to have huge HP pools which results in longer fights, which results in a higher power consumtion. Also they have been very stingy with resists and only boosted them lately. Less resists require more heal. Maybe, just maybe we will see 3 healers in G1 again in a not so distant future.</p><p>We ll see. Currently i am just happy. Even solo healed my repercussions update in Cella.</p><p>Personally i use sandstorm on pull of linked encounters. That gives the tank a nice hate spike and allows the DPSers to start earlier to nuke. I am quite selfish here. Anything that makes my life easier is welcome. I probably could agree that sandstorm is less useful in a raid situation.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><p>I think I disagree with just about all of this.  My guild has cleared all easymode mobs of SF and from what I can tell, fury is still the fatkid healer of the 6 (maybe tied with Inquis).  They gained turtle shell and the extra cure, but so did wardens.  The raidwide cure is inferior to the warden divine aura IMO.  And they still guzzle power like a 40 year old V8.  The one cool thing they have is the big single target potency buff (name escapes me).  Anyway..</p><p><strong>Maybe its your fury, lol. I tell it as I have seen it.</strong></p><p>Sandstorm is somewhat better than it was before.  The +parry/defense/deflection stats are just as useless now as they were before the change (in a raid setting); nothing is different in this regard.  Raid mobs were immune to knockbacks (I think), so <em>that</em> part of the buff was useless pre-SF.  Now it's been replaced by shield block, which is equivalent to the old knockback in mitigating damage in heroic content, YET is also useful on raids.  The threat part is probably one of the nicer changes.  It's an encounterwide taunt that triggers even on an avoid.  Heroic tanks can pull big and the buff will help funnel loose mobs back to the tank, it helps counter any aggro from Spore triggers, and it doesn't root the warden place place so you can follow the tank as they round up mobs.  On raids it's slightly better because fighters are easily capped on +hate gain and the Sandstorm proc is raw threat.  The root part versus fearing mobs was kinda nice and all but that's something I think I can live without.  Like I've said before, my biggest complaint is the duration, I'd like to see it go to 1 minute with a 1-2 minute recast.</p><p><strong>If the duration was still 3 minutes I might agree its not all that bad. By the way, how many non tanks carry a shield besides other healers possibly in a group? 30 seconds every two min is not that big a bonus in any way unless you have act up and are watching raid wide threat to see when it is needed. I like the non root part of it. The rest is blah though and if a tank is pulling mulitple mobs, most dps are smart enough including warlocks to not get aggro, lol. </strong></p><p>The DPS group cure is a waste because another healer might cure first?  Are you serious?  lol  Have you ever heard of.. you know, <strong>talking</strong> to the other healer in your group and coordinating your group cures?</p><p><strong>The longer a detriment is on the group the worse it is, therefore if another healer in the group can get it off quicker they should. Period.</strong>  It is good for solo healing a group though.</p><p>I'm not quite sure where to start on the Instinct thing..  1.) It's not meant to be a hate transfer.  Hate transfers are in effect 24/7 when applied, this is just a proc.  The buff is kinda handy on fighters if no scouts are in the group OR if the fighter goes heavy defense; the accuracy + melee skills help them offset the penalties of their defense stance/gear.  2.)  The last paragraph about you putting Instinct on yourself and meleeing raid mobs just makes me do a facepalm, so.. moving on..</p><p><strong>Lol, Facepalm, so logical a response. I never thought you as one of those healers who sat back and spent their time in tells chatting or staring at the screen waiting for something happen when you dont happen to need to cast a heal. I guess I know better, lol. Of course you could be a healer who spam heals even when its not needed too. Never having seen you play, I dont know though. </strong></p><p><strong>For an undergeared tank instinct can be useful although before they changed the aggro abilities of the tanks some with this expansion, it was good for gaurdians to help them dps to hold aggro when taunts wouldnt be enought. Of course, having an alt gaurd, I know they have an aa which removes all negatives of their stances so it is just not that important for them as it used to be unless they dont care about dps and dont take that AA. </strong></p><p><em>This was always our role, thats why we always have been the most power efficient healers.</em></p><p>Are you kidding me?  This class wastes more power than any other class in the game and <strong>were designed that way from the start really. the dev's always expected hot ticks to be wasted. Accept it, get used to it, expect it. </strong></p></blockquote><p>Replies in bold. Lets just say that I agree to disagree with a lot of what you said. I could be wrong and things do change, time will tell, maybe I will get bored with helping the raid any way I can and agree that sitting around inbetween casting heals is what a healer should do, lol.</p></blockquote><p>I'm always casting spells, even if they're not needed.  If it's during a trash clear I simply put on potency/ability mod procing gear and keep spamming heals.  This allows me to contribute damage without having to run around in some gimpy melee spec.</p>

[snowli]

<p>Sandstorm is a lot worse.</p><ul><li>It went from a 3mins out of 3mins15 or so ability to a 30secs out of 2mins ish ability, which might be okay if it was better, but it isn't.</li><li>You won't cast a hate proc to try save some1 from agro raiding, you'd heal them, </li><li>good tanks don't need hate that often even in heroic, </li><li>it used to really reduce the damage the whole group took from frontals and aoe's with KB's for mobs and +defense protecting everyone in heroic content -  </li><li>doesn't do that anymore, it only might help if again tank is bad for hate, has no effect on amount of frontals, aoe's encounter nukes etc,</li><li>and the 2.x% avoidance it temporarily might give to just tanks is not enough to make noticeable differences, </li><li>it's crap in pvp now, </li><li>and of course you can't root yourself versus fear mobs anymore either.</li></ul><p>There used to be a lot of situations to definitely turn on sandstorm, now it's just a "meh... if nothing else needs casting and my power is fine" type of spell.</p>

[snowli]

<p>StaticLex you need a better handle on the most basic mechanics, nothing fancy, no arcane forum knowledge required, just observation: Go in game and cast a spell, queue up another 1, watch your cast bar..... notice the pause between 1 spell finishing and the next beginning? That's recovery time, give or take a little bit of client/server lag.</p><p>It's default is 0.5 seconds. Abilities that don't explicitly say otherwise have 0.5 seconds downtime AFTER they're finished casting applied. It's added at the end, not from the beginning as you appear to assume.</p><p>Adding casting speed only affects PART of the actual amount of spells cast per minute in practice, because the casting speed doesn't affect the recovery time before the next spell. The various  threads where you're saying casting speed affects everyone equally anyone who doesn't think so doesn't understand fractions and percentages is clueless etc, I'm afraid you're wrong.</p><p>When two people who use different average casting times to achieve their hps level greatly increase their casting speed, the person with a slower average cast time gains additional benefit - the ratios are no longer the same. Think of it as different classes spend different amounts of their minute recovering, this mechanic slot alongside casting speed, but isn't directly reduced by casting speed. Figures vary very much according to personal gear buffs etc, but one can guestimate around a 10% benefit for a slow casting healer over a fast casting healer with the new amounts of cast speed.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p>This is ridiculous.  I'm through replying to your posts.</p>

[Pyra Shineflame]

<p>20% off 5secs is "more" because the 20% is more than it would be if it was 20% off 2secs. The old 20% of 100 is 20, while 20% off 1000 is 200 trick. That's why slower casters see larger benefits. Simple math. Why no one posted it just as simply, I have no flipping clue. /end discussion on casting times. Move on.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Zulaika@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>20% off 5secs is "more" because the 20% is more than it would be if it was 20% off 2secs. The old 20% of 100 is 20, while 20% off 1000 is 200 trick. That's why slower casters see larger benefits. Simple math. Why no one posted it just as simply, I have no flipping clue. /end discussion on casting times. Move on.</p></blockquote><p>YOU ARE WRONG.</p><p>To use your own example to illustrate:  Imagine a pizza sliced into 100 pieces and 20 of them were eaten.  Now imagine that same pizza sliced into 1000 pieces and 200 of them were eaten.  IT'S THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF PIZZA EATEN IN BOTH CASES.  What you're saying is because you ate 200 pieces of a smaller sliced pizza, you ate more.. which is completely wrong!</p><p>In the case of healer cast times it's a "HPS pizza".  The individual cast times are irrelevant because the spells are balanced with HPS in mind.  Shaman heals heal for 2-3 times as much, but take 2-3 times as long to cast as druid heals.  THIS makes the "HPS pizza" the same size across both classes.  So, when you apply a 20% bonus.. YOU GET THE EXACT SAME BENEFIT.</p><p>Geezus...! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Hene]

<p>Here is an explanations for anyone who does get the whole Reuse vs. Recovery:</p><p>The total time required to cast <strong><em>and recover from casting</em></strong> a spell/ability is Cast time + Recovery time.  Lets say you have a spell that takes 3 seconds to cast and 0.5 seconds to recover from:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 0% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">3*(1/(1+0%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 3.0 + 0.5 =<strong> <span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">3.5</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 50% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">3*(1/(1+50%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 2.0 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">2.5</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 100% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">3*(1/(1+100%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 1.5 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">2.0</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p>Now lets say you have a spell that takes 1 second to cast and 0.5 seconds to recover from:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 0% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">1*(1/(1+0%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 1.0 + 0.5 =<strong> <span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">1.5</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 50% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">1*(1/(1+50%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 0.6667 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">1.1667</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 100% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">1*(1/(1+100%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 0.5 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">1.0</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p>As you can see, since recovery speed is unaffected by the casting speed, as a spell's casting time increases, you will see more benefit from casting speed (again, because of a constant recovery time).</p>

[Rick777]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Here is an explanations for anyone who does get the whole Reuse vs. Recovery:</p><p>The total time required to cast <strong><em>and recover from casting</em></strong> a spell/ability is Cast time + Recovery time.  Lets say you have a spell that takes 3 seconds to cast and 0.5 seconds to recover from:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 0% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">3*(1/(1+0%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 3.0 + 0.5 =<strong> <span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">3.5</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 50% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">3*(1/(1+50%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 2.0 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">2.5</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 100% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">3*(1/(1+100%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 1.5 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">2.0</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p>Now lets say you have a spell that takes 1 second to cast and 0.5 seconds to recover from:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 0% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">1*(1/(1+0%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 1.0 + 0.5 =<strong> <span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">1.5</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 50% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">1*(1/(1+50%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 0.6667 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">1.1667</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With 100% casting speed:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="color: #ff0000;">1*(1/(1+100%))</span>+<span style="color: #00ffff;">0.5</span>= 0.5 + 0.5 = <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">1.0</span></strong></span> seconds total to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p>As you can see, since recovery speed is unaffected by the casting speed, as a spell's casting time increases, you will see more benefit from casting speed (again, because of a constant recovery time).</p></blockquote><p>This is the way I've understood it as well, great explanation (should be stickied).  From having both a myth warden and a myth templar in the past subjectively casting speed items certainly "felt" much more beneficial to my templar, although I don't have any objective tests to back that up.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As you can see, since recovery speed is unaffected by the casting speed, as a spell's casting time increases, you will see more benefit from casting speed (again, because of a constant recovery time).</p></blockquote><p>What part of recovery time being an entirely seperate mechanic than cast speed/time don't you understand?</p>

[KatrinaDeath]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zulaika@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>20% off 5secs is "more" because the 20% is more than it would be if it was 20% off 2secs. The old 20% of 100 is 20, while 20% off 1000 is 200 trick. That's why slower casters see larger benefits. Simple math. Why no one posted it just as simply, I have no flipping clue. /end discussion on casting times. Move on.</p></blockquote><p>YOU ARE WRONG.</p><p>To use your own example to illustrate:  Imagine a pizza sliced into 100 pieces and 20 of them were eaten.  Now imagine that same pizza sliced into 1000 pieces and 200 of them were eaten.  IT'S THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF PIZZA EATEN IN BOTH CASES.  What you're saying is because you ate 200 pieces of a smaller sliced pizza, you ate more.. which is completely wrong!</p><p>In the case of healer cast times it's a "HPS pizza".  The individual cast times are irrelevant because the spells are balanced with HPS in mind.  Shaman heals heal for 2-3 times as much, but take 2-3 times as long to cast as druid heals.  THIS makes the "HPS pizza" the same size across both classes.  So, when you apply a 20% bonus.. YOU GET THE EXACT SAME BENEFIT.</p><p>Geezus...! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>mmmmmm... HPS Pizza</p>

[Rick777]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As you can see, since recovery speed is unaffected by the casting speed, as a spell's casting time increases, you will see more benefit from casting speed (again, because of a constant recovery time).</p></blockquote><p>What part of recovery time being an entirely seperate mechanic than cast speed/time don't you understand?</p></blockquote><p>I don't think anyone is arguing that recovery time isn't a separate mechanic.  I think this is just a semantics issue.  Most of us take casting time and recovery time as one big block, and yes we are combining 2 different mechanics, but that's really how long it takes to cast a spell and move on to the next queued spell, casting time + recovery time.  So in terms of casting time + recovery time yes casting speed benefits longer casting heals a greater amount.  I get your point that only looking at the single mechanic of casting speed there is no difference in the benefit of + casting speed, but I'm just confused why you are working so hard to stick to it, does it really matter?  I don't think anyone was really arguing with you, just explaining it differently. We're all talking about improving our heals.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As you can see, since recovery speed is unaffected by the casting speed, as a spell's casting time increases, you will see more benefit from casting speed (again, because of a constant recovery time).</p></blockquote><p>What part of recovery time being an entirely seperate mechanic than cast speed/time don't you understand?</p></blockquote><p>Ummm, what made you come to the conclusion that I think casting speed and recovery are the same?  Did you read my post? I explicitly stated that recovery time is unaffected by casting time.</p><p>While they are physically separate mechanics, they go hand in hand; i.e. they both influence how fast you can effectively cast (effective casting delay).  If your spell has a 5 second casting time base, it will be 5.5 seconds (base) after you start casting it before you can cast another spell (assuming no interruptions).  The additional 0.5 seconds is from spell recovery.  Do you understand that?</p><p>If not, here is the same obvious example, comparing effective "down time" until you are able to cast the next spell:</p><p><span ><p>The total time required to cast <strong><em>and recover from casting</em></strong> a spell/ability is Cast time + Recovery time.  Lets say you have a spell that takes 3 seconds to cast and 0.5 seconds to recover from:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With<span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;"> 0% casting speed</span>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <strong><span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">3.5</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>seconds or <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">100% of the base time</span> to cast and recover from casting said spell (i.e. this is your down time).</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">50% casting speed</span>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">2.5</span></strong></span> seconds <span >or <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">71.4% of the base time</span> </span>to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">100% casting speed</span>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">2.0</span></strong></span> seconds <span >or <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">57.1% of the base time</span> </span>to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p>Now lets say you have a spell that takes 1 second to cast and 0.5 seconds to recover from:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With<span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;"> 0% casting speed</span>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <strong><span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">1.5</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>seconds <span >or <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">100% of the base time </span></span>to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">50% casting speed</span>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">1.1667</span></strong></span> seconds <span >or <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">77.8% of the base time </span></span>to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">100% casting speed</span>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It will take <span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="color: #00ff00;">1.0</span></strong></span> seconds <span >or <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">66.7% of the base time </span></span>to cast and recover from casting said spell.</p></span></p><p>So, with capped casting speed (100%, which reduces the <strong><em>casting time only</em></strong> to half its original value), a spell with a 3 second casting time has its <strong><em>effective casting delay</em></strong><em><strong> </strong></em>reduced to 57.1% of the original value.</p><p>Again, with casting speed capped, a spell with a 1 second casting time has its <em><strong>effective casting delay </strong></em>reduced to 66.7% of the original value.</p><p>From this, I hope you can see that a spell with a longer casting time is reduced in effective casting delay more so than a spell with a short casting time; again, this is due to recovery time affecting effective casting delay, or how long before from the time you start casting a spell until you can cast another spell.</p>

[Pyra Shineflame]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zulaika@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>20% off 5secs is "more" because the 20% is more than it would be if it was 20% off 2secs. The old 20% of 100 is 20, while 20% off 1000 is 200 trick. That's why slower casters see larger benefits. Simple math. Why no one posted it just as simply, I have no flipping clue. /end discussion on casting times. Move on.</p></blockquote><p>YOU ARE WRONG.</p><p>To use your own example to illustrate:  Imagine a pizza sliced into 100 pieces and 20 of them were eaten.  Now imagine that same pizza sliced into 1000 pieces and 200 of them were eaten.  IT'S THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF PIZZA EATEN IN BOTH CASES.  What you're saying is because you ate 200 pieces of a smaller sliced pizza, you ate more.. which is completely wrong!</p><p>In the case of healer cast times it's a "HPS pizza".  The individual cast times are irrelevant because the spells are balanced with HPS in mind.  Shaman heals heal for 2-3 times as much, but take 2-3 times as long to cast as druid heals.  THIS makes the "HPS pizza" the same size across both classes.  So, when you apply a 20% bonus.. YOU GET THE EXACT SAME BENEFIT.</p><p>Geezus...! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>What, what, what? The hell kind of analogy is that? Bigger = bigger, not "cut into more pieces." Smaller = smaller. You know, in mass, weight, whatever? Not "cut into less peices." Is there some reason why that escaped you? What I said, is 20% of a bigger value is more, than 20% of a smaller value. That's it. Cool your jets and take a second look at how your reading comprehension works. So if BOTH are cut into 1000 peices, 200 of the bigger one would be more than 200 of the smaller pizza. I NEVER even HINTED that bloody 200 of the smaller pizza would be more, where on earth did you get that...</p>

[Tehom]

<p>Well what Staticlex is trying to say is that if you're casting for the entirety of your play time, then the individual spells cast times are irrelevant - you're either casting 2 spells for 2.5 seconds or 1 spell for 5 seconds, and cast time reduction would work out to be the same benefit.</p><p>That's accurate provided you ignore recovery time (which adds a .5 second delay between every spell, as Hene was illustrating), and also if you assume you can chain cast, which isn't necessarily true for every fight. If a fight is divided into periods which you can cast before you'd have to be interrupted, then it may favor certain cast times and give them proportionally more benefit, though that's really a case-by-case thing.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well what Staticlex is trying to say is that if you're casting for the entirety of your play time, then the individual spells cast times are irrelevant - you're either casting 2 spells for 2.5 seconds or 1 spell for 5 seconds, and cast time reduction would work out to be the same benefit.</p><p>That's accurate provided you ignore recovery time (which adds a .5 second delay between every spell, as Hene was illustrating)</p></blockquote><p>In other words, what Staticlex is saying is, in fact, not applicable, because recovery time is not 0 seconds.</p>

[Rick777]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well what Staticlex is trying to say is that if you're casting for the entirety of your play time, then the individual spells cast times are irrelevant - you're either casting 2 spells for 2.5 seconds or 1 spell for 5 seconds, and cast time reduction would work out to be the same benefit.</p><p>That's accurate provided you ignore recovery time (which adds a .5 second delay between every spell, as Hene was illustrating)</p></blockquote><p>In other words, what Staticlex is saying is, in fact, not applicable, because recovery time is not 0 seconds.</p></blockquote><p>No it's applicable, it's just 2 different ways of looking at things.  They are  both correct, it's just what mechanics they used to define how long it takes to cast a spell, then cast the next queued spell.  I'm not sure why they spent so much time kicking and hollering though, kind of amusing.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Rick777 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well what Staticlex is trying to say is that if you're casting for the entirety of your play time, then the individual spells cast times are irrelevant - you're either casting 2 spells for 2.5 seconds or 1 spell for 5 seconds, and cast time reduction would work out to be the same benefit.</p><p>That's accurate provided you ignore recovery time (which adds a .5 second delay between every spell, as Hene was illustrating)</p></blockquote><p>In other words, what Staticlex is saying is, in fact, not applicable, because recovery time is not 0 seconds.</p></blockquote><p>No it's applicable, it's just 2 different ways of looking at things.  They are  both correct, it's just what mechanics they used to define how long it takes to cast a spell, then cast the next queued spell.  I'm not sure why they spent so much time kicking and hollering though, kind of amusing.</p></blockquote><p>But what I am saying, is <strong><em>when is recovery time </em><em>negligible</em></strong><strong><em>?</em></strong>  It practically never is.</p><p>Recovery time interferes with effective casting time, end of story.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well what Staticlex is trying to say is that if you're casting for the entirety of your play time, then the individual spells cast times are irrelevant - you're either casting 2 spells for 2.5 seconds or 1 spell for 5 seconds, and cast time reduction would work out to be the same benefit.</p></blockquote><p>Right.</p><p><em>In other words, what Staticlex is saying is, in fact, not applicable, because recovery time is not 0 seconds.</em></p><p>lol?  I don't know why this is rocket science for you.  Recovery time is NOT part of a spells cast time.  If I have a spell that casts in ONE second, it finishes casting in ONE second.  NOT one and a half seconds.</p><p>But this isn't even the biggest reason your assertion about recovery time is completely stupid.  Even IF recovery time was tacked onto spell cast time (in order to make fast casting heals look completely underpowered, which is exactly what you're doing) the player would still be waiting on spell reuse.  For example:</p><p>My Sylvan Bloom is my fastest casting, fastest reusable heal.  It casts in about .55 seconds with my current gear setup, with a 4 second recast.  If I was to stand still and spam this one spell over and over and over it wouldn't even matter that my recovery is .33 seconds because I'd be waiting for the FOUR SECOND REUSE between casts.  But wait, what's this .33 second recovery?  Oh that's right, I bet you didn't bother to look at see the warden heal stance gives the player an automatic 50% recovery bonus to spell casting.</p><p>Anyway, the ONLY spell that recovery even comes close to screwing is the single target cure, and that's because it shows instant recast when examined.  Even with the instant recast I am stuck waiting for the ridiculously unfair .33 second recovery between casts.  /sarcasm</p><p>Is this starting to make sense to you?</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Recovery time interferes with effective casting time, end of story.</p></blockquote><p>Here we go, you know what "effective casting time" means?  That's what ends up being said when someone takes two completely seperate mechanics out of their proper context and mashes them together in order to create a problem that isn't actually there.</p><p>Like I have said before, the total HPS of each class is determined by the combination of cast times, reuse speeds, recovery times, aaaaand heal amounts for that class.  Not one, or two, or even three of these things, but all four.  What you are doing by cherrypicking recovery time and attaching it to cast time in order to paint a negative picture is simply terrible logic.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><em>In other words, what Staticlex is saying is, in fact, not applicable, because recovery time is not 0 seconds.</em></p><p>lol?  I don't know why this is rocket science for you.  Recovery time is NOT part of a spells cast time.  If I have a spell that casts in ONE second, it finishes casting in ONE second.  NOT one and a half seconds.</p></blockquote><p>Right, it finishes casting in 1 second, <span style="font-size: medium;"><em><strong>but you cannot cast anything else until your recovery time has elapsed after finishing casting</strong></em></span></p><p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But this isn't even the biggest reason your assertion about recovery time is completely stupid.  Even IF recovery time was tacked onto spell cast time (in order to make fast casting heals look completely underpowered, which is exactly what you're doing) the player would still be waiting on spell reuse.  For example:</p><p>My Sylvan Bloom is my fastest casting, fastest reusable heal.  It casts in about .55 seconds with my current gear setup, with a 4 second recast.  If I was to stand still and spam this one spell over and over and over it wouldn't even matter that my recovery is .33 seconds because I'd be waiting for the FOUR SECOND REUSE between casts.  But wait, what's this .33 second recovery?  Oh that's right, I bet you didn't bother to look at see the warden heal stance gives the player an automatic 50% recovery bonus to spell casting.</p></blockquote><p>So you chain cast only a single abiltiy? lol, anyway:</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Reuse</span></strong> is the time it takes after you finish casting before you can cast the <strong><em>same</em></strong> spell.</span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Recovery</span> </strong>is the time it takes after you finish casting before you can cast <strong><em>any </em></strong>spell. </span></p><p>And considering most people don't just cast one spell back to back to back, this example is completely stupid and irrelevant.  <span style="color: #ff0000;">Once you finish casting Sylvan Bloom, you have to wait until your recovery time elapses before you can cast something else.</span></p><p><strong>Plain and simple, recovery time is the mandatory "down time" between casting spells.</strong></p><p>Is this starting to make sense to you?</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Recovery time interferes with effective casting time, end of story.</p></blockquote><p>Here we go, you know what "effective casting time" means?  That's what ends up being said when someone takes two completely seperate mechanics out of their proper context and mashes them together in order to create a problem that isn't actually there.</p><p>Like I have said before, the total HPS of each class is determined by the combination of cast times, reuse speeds, recovery times, aaaaand heal amounts for that class.  Not one, or two, or even three of these things, but all four.  What you are doing by cherrypicking recovery time and attaching it to cast time in order to paint a negative picture is simply terrible logic.</p></blockquote><p>It is very true that all of these and more affect heal ability.</p><p>However, answer this question:</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong>How long is it, from the time you click a heal spell, until you can begin casting another spell?</strong></span></p><p>(oh and btw, having a modified recovery speed will affect how much you benefit from casting speed)</p>

[Odys]

<p>There is no issue at all with the mana regen of warden, mine only loose mana if she uses offensive abiltiies. She blow the hps of my mystic by a very large margin. Less than 1 second to we  cast the group heal (with fast reload).</p><p>With our mad regen mana we can also cast hierophantic genesis without being afraid to run out of mana, in a sense we caisn transfert mana to someone from time to time.</p><p>Warden may still have issues with damage spike,, but a constant tempest + hiero is likely to be enough for most x1 .</p><p>My only problem is that it is quite overkill to play a warden especially if you are buffed by a bard or a coercer, when i group with  a non warden i end up wtih 2-3 more casts than the other healer.</p>

[Oakum]

<p>So lets break this down.</p><p>Theoreticaly all healer sub classes are close to equal healers, just use different methods/buffs to achieve the goal of keeping the group/MT up.</p><p>Is this true? YES/NO</p><p>Would a raid leader sit any healer in order to replace them with another healer or a dps?</p><p>YES/NO</p><p>The secondary side now.</p><p>Clerics are the best temp buffers and should have more/better temp buffs then shaman and druids. Are they?</p><p>Templers? YES/NO</p><p>Inquisitors? YES/NO</p><p>Shaman should have the best debuffs and be better then clerics and druids in that area. Are they?</p><p>Mystic? YES/NO</p><p>Defiler? YES/NO</p><p>Druids have dps as their secondary side. Are they better at it clerics and shaman?</p><p>Warden? YES/NO</p><p>Fury? YES/NO</p><p>If the answer to the first question is yes for all classes and no to sitting and the individual subclass questions is yes then healers are balanced.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Would a raid leader sit any healer in order to replace them with another healer or a dps?</p><p>YES/NO</p><p>...</p><p>If the answer to the first question is yes for all classes and no to sitting and the individual subclass questions is yes then healers are balanced.</p></blockquote><p>The day class balance comes down to some random know-nothing clown sitting in his basement forming groups is the day I stop raiding.</p>

[Pyra Shineflame]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So lets break this down.</p><p>Theoreticaly all healer sub classes are close to equal healers, just use different methods/buffs to achieve the goal of keeping the group/MT up.</p><p>Is this true? YES/NO</p><p>Would a raid leader sit any healer in order to replace them with another healer or a dps?</p><p>YES/NO</p><p>The secondary side now.</p><p>Clerics are the best temp buffers and should have more/better temp buffs then shaman and druids. Are they?</p><p>Templers? YES/NO</p><p>Inquisitors? YES/NO</p><p>Shaman should have the best debuffs and be better then clerics and druids in that area. Are they?</p><p>Mystic? YES/NO</p><p>Defiler? YES/NO</p><p>Druids have dps as their secondary side. Are they better at it clerics and shaman?</p><p>Warden? YES/NO</p><p>Fury? YES/NO</p><p>If the answer to the first question is yes for all classes and no to sitting and the individual subclass questions is yes then healers are balanced.</p></blockquote><p>You are missing the fact that some healers clearly have a "sub" role in mind that is not keeping the MT tank up. Furies go in the caster group, inquisitor go into the melee group, that is how their buffs are focused, so comparing all class to a "MT healer" role gives a very skewed image.</p><p>As for dps, melee healers kind of messed that up a bit...</p>

[Odys]

<p>Dps wise my warden is doing much better than my mystic, it was not the case at all before SF.</p><p>But for both DPS is simply convenient, it helps for easy/moderate instqance or T8 raids but in the high end their DPS is irrelevant.</p><p>Note also that both bring melee dps, in most cases such a dps is irrelevant for end game stuff.</p><p>My mystic is supposed to bring nice debuf, i consider it as my second taks after healing/warding. But guess what nobody notices it. I asked peope if the ancient aoe debuf was doing anything and got no real reply. Indeed if i stop debuffing nobody complains. The same holds for our slow line.  I also wonder if our Dog haste, and the proc of our mythical actually raise the dps of a group, people may be capped in haste and double attack. Last, ritual of alacrity does not seems to be in high demand.</p><p>Indeed if i was only warding and healing most people would be satisfied.</p><p>People have weird ideas about healing power due to parses, as example on a VP raid my mystic was at 800hps, the templar at 600, my warden can toss 2600-3000 forever; despite that the raid organizers would still prefer the mystic. They may be rigth : the extra hp, the sentry, amplification and damage spike prevention are defeating pure hps.</p><p>Lately i see a lot of raid asking for wardens, probably because extreme hps is needed when raid forces are not yet equiped. But guild are mainly looking for templar and mystics, this is more an offer/demand issue since druids are more  popular (high offer) than shaman and templars.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Odys@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My mystic is supposed to bring nice debuf, i consider it as my second taks after healing/warding. But guess what nobody notices it. I asked peope if the ancient aoe debuf was doing anything and got no real reply. Indeed if i stop debuffing nobody complains. The same holds for our slow line.  I also wonder if our Dog haste, and the proc of our mythical actually raise the dps of a group, people may be capped in haste and double attack. Last, ritual of alacrity does not seems to be in high demand.</p><p>Indeed if i was only warding and healing most people would be satisfied.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">But on some fights it is imperative to get debuffs in if you want your group to live, that makes healing SOOO much easier on some fights on my mystic.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Shaman debuffs are very nice, just because people don't actively notice it, doesn't mean you shouldn't cast it. The defensive debuffs make the mob die faster, unless they are dying before you can land your debuffs on em obviously. For the offensive debuffs, 50%+ reduction in incoming melee damage from mobs in totally uber. And about RoA, idk who you group with but all my caster friends want RoA...even tanks ask me for it occasionally</span></p><p>People have weird ideas about healing power due to parses, as example on a VP raid my mystic was at 800hps, the templar at 600, my warden can toss 2600-3000 forever; despite that the raid organizers would still prefer the mystic. They may be rigth : the extra hp, the sentry, amplification and damage spike prevention are defeating pure hps.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">HPS means absolutely nothing; if you keep your group alive then you've satisfied the #1 reason of playing your healer.  The point of taking shamans at MT healers is spike prevention like you said, not their HPS.</span></p><p>But guild are mainly looking for templar and mystics, this is more an offer/demand issue since druids are more  popular (high offer) than shaman and templars.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Idk what this means.</span></p></blockquote>