A Subjective point of view on the current state of the classes.

[Odys]

<p>Here is personnal  point of view on the current state of the classes. Since I play tank, healer and buffer i won't comment much on pure dps classes. I could hope that Velious will reduce the current unbalance, but i m sure that the Devs will certainly break the things even more.</p><p>_--------------------------------------------------------------------------A) Tanks Monks : Currently Avoidance tanks are still not too trusted and need superior equipment to perform well. Some advantage they have over all other tanks but SKs is their ability to feign death , their numerous interupts which allow and to solo instances faster and better thah most classes.Both monks are in low demand. I always trust my tanks and if a Monk applies to my groups he will always be welcome, but very often they thanks me for trusting them and comment on the general lack of confidence of the player base. Knigth : The Sk is still a favorite toon, high DPS combined with high mitigation, Feign death and evac make them very attractive. Paladins are rarer each day, the class HPS is clearly not were it should. Being a mix between a guard and a templar Paladins should have the highest HPS, but it's far from being the case. Berzerker HPS is probably 4-5 time higher due to their %base self heal proc. Archihealing is currently a joke and even Lay on hand is weak. Indeed Paladin healing does not scale as it should. The support role of the class is not that clear even if very good ressurection and crusade are usefull in a raid. The fact that Paladin can weaken their avoidance to increase the one of a group member is rather useless for the high end, the SK abilities which are opposite (steal mitigation) is certainly way better. Some care have to be taken in the Paladin case, in the non high end the class is currently quite overpowered.Pure fighters :Both are now popular. With the recent change  the guard is back as the best tank and bersekers are amazing against multiple target. Currently, i feel that  berzekers are a bit overpowered against large packs of monster.Conclusion : Monks still need love and avoidance tanks are still problematic. Paladin need better heal and better support bufs. Berzeker DPS and HPS should be tuned down against 3+ targets. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Buffers : Enchanters :The group haste/dps mod SF-AA  of the enchanters made the two subclasses overpowered. Group haste now cost 1 concentration point, which implies the possibility to have up 2 group buf, and 4 agro bufs. Indeed group haste made this two buffing classes a must have and this impact the desirability of pure dps classes. Currently illusionist dps is way below the one of coercers, but the Dev. announced their intention to fix it. Conclusion : Group/haste or Group dps buf should be revisited. I totally love my coercer but he brings so much to a group that it is simply too much (improved velocity 4 grope wide ..). And being 82 i don't have yet my group mana flow. Bards : The situation is getting worst and worst, when switching a dps for a bard you will usually destroy the encounter that was causing you issues before the shift. An Afk bard contribute more than an active dps  player to a group, and a well played bard contributes twice more.Conclusion : The bard issue is one of the most crucial currently, a form of  holy trinity syndrom is striking Eq2 like never. A first move should be to remove the 10% potency group buf and to make it single target.Priests :_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Priest :Clerics : The two classes are fine, the templar bufs and highly proactive heals make it one of the best healer in the game. The inquisitor while being not that far from the templar brings massive dps buf to a melee group  and happen to be probably the strongest priest soloer in the game. Indeed my baby inqui seems to solo even better than my paladin did, way better than my mystic (steadfast, self dps mod), a quite better than my warden (reactive >> hot and better mitigation).Shaman : Both are suffering quite a lot from the fact that wards do not scale as well as other heals. They also totally miss any trick to avoid a stun or interuption and they are very weak in the cure department. Their common dog does not scale at all.The cure an AOE of the dog are neither controllable  nor predictable which make them almost useless.The mystic used to be good at buffing melee but with double attack cap, haste cap and str cap this role belong to the past.  Both classes remain welcome due to very high spike damage which make ward a must have. Druids :Druids received quite some love with SF, and remained  excellent solo healers. They were given a second group cure, serenty was made usable when stunned, turtle shell range was increased and the buckler requirement removed.Several new AAs were quite welcome. But a hige imbalance between furies and warden has been introduced. Furies which are offensive do indeed heal as well or even better than warden. They have two heals that warden don't get (back in the fray, hibernate) and they also have the most proactive heal in the game (improved hibernation). If we were looking only at healing the balance would be ok ... warden do have hieorphantic genesis but furies have back in fray, warden  do get elemental ward (ultra situationnal) but fury do get hibernate .... But the problem lies elsewhere :Furies can self buf their potency by 10% and this already breaks the balance. But moreover they bring good dps buf to a group  of caster and they have a good ranged dps. So a fury heal as well, buf your mages, and can bring decent dps from afar. Wardens can dps decently but they need to be in melee (high risk) morover since spell haste and spell reuse does not apply to combat art thei dps does not scale as well as fury one. Last fury get some unique little extra : porcupine, the possibility to grant someone with a heal.   Conclusion : The two clerics are in good standing, so no real change needed since i don't want to call for Nerfs. The two shamans suffer from Ward crit formula which should be modified and both shaman should be given tools similar to steadfast, the mystic should regain its offensive buf abilities which almost disappeared. The extreme unbalance between furies and warden should be addressed. The 10%  potency buf should be moved to the shadow druid line or to the general druid. Warden should be given real tool to buf a melee group. I also wish to add that some work should be done around battlepriest the 3 of them do not get benefit from spell haste and spell reuse. My mystic may now do more damage with her spell than with her CAs. Pure dps classes :No comment since i have zero interest for those classes i levelled once a swash to 22-23 soloed Lord Aldousand deleted him. I usually never care about the dps classes that join my groups, the player and the stuff are much more important than the class. And i would certainly rather take a cool necro over an assasin even if his dps is not that high.Oh well may be one : Something should be done to make pure mage gameplay more interesting in group, at least scouts have to dance around the mobs but mage (especially the 2 without pet) must be very very boring in group/raid.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p>All good points and pretty much my views exactly other than I would be far more critical about SKs OPness.</p>

[Yimway]

<p>I read the fighter section, laughed, and didn't read on.</p><p>There are soo many generalizations that are categorically untrue, I didn't see the point in continueing.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>It's not just the Fighter section . . .</p>

[Griffildur]

<p>your views on the shamans show you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Perhaps you should try playing one past lvl 30 and see how they actually are, end game , when they get more than 15 aa ?</p><p>Just a thought here, pleae stop making these generalizations, they are so crap they don't do you any favours.</p>

[thegriss]

<p>For the most part I agree on all point other than the shaman ward increase.  Proactive wards are more valuable than single target heals or reactive because they always work where as reactive heals only work if the person taking damage survives the hit.   In the case of raiding shamans wards cannot me replaced by anything to prevent squishies from being 1 shotted however group heals, HOT and single target heals can replace reactive heals.  I feel the Value of wards is far more than the other types of healing.  If shamans are so weak why do they consistantly hold High spots in raid healing parses. Proactive > reactive.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Heal parse is meaningless.  How many people died in each group should be the bottom (*@#ing line for any group in a raid.</p><p>And in that scenario, Shaman are not very effective.  Group Wards don't work like most people believe they do.</p><p>Shaman are exceptional at leveling out the damage spikes on a single target.  Shaman are not great at dealing with widespread damage in a group.  They can generally do it, but I assure you they work twice as hard as a Druid to do so, and in some cases they just don't have the necessary tools to do it.</p>

[Griffildur]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Heal parse is meaningless.  How many people died in each group should be the bottom (*@#ing line for any group in a raid.</p><p>And in that scenario, Shaman are not very effective.  Group Wards don't work like most people believe they do.</p><p>Shaman are exceptional at leveling out the damage spikes on a single target.  Shaman are not great at dealing with widespread damage in a group.  They can generally do it, but I assure you they work twice as hard as a Druid to do so, and in some cases they just don't have the necessary tools to do it.</p></blockquote><p>wrong on so many levels, i don't even know where to begin.</p><p>Let's see</p><p>1. Group Wards ... have quite a decent group heal once the ward finishes casting. - heal gained via aa</p><p>2. Group Heal spell, large amount, relatively quick recast.</p><p>3. Huge Group Heal gained via AA - Ancestral Channeling - our shaman end of line ability. it's an "oh sh*t button" really and recast is longer.</p><p>4. Single wards - decent heal as well not just ward. - heal is also via aa</p><p>5. Group wards - via aa - Spiritual Leadership.</p><p>6. Various other wards / group heals / single target wards, gained through spells, aa, procs , melee.</p><p>7. Our wards / heals proc other wards and heals, or larger amounts of next heal / ward we cast.</p><p>8. Ritual skill gained via aa, adds to the size of our wards / heals to make them even bigger. I have it macroed to my wards / group heals so it's used every time it's up.</p><p>All these crit, so with a 100% crit chance they will always crit ... and yeah I know how we get a bit screwed with the crit bonus but even so they crit every time.</p><p>Group cure, via aa is 10s recast which is quite enough.</p><p>Dog - has group ward ( small value but still it's almost always up. he has group cure as well and that sure helps with curing. He triggers aoe block as well. Yeah they may not be 100% reliable and they are not guaranteed to be up when needed but still, they are up quite a bit.</p><p>Finally, our group wards get very big. I am no where near having the best equipment, but I've had group wards of up to 35k and it's not a rare occurence. Having a fury  that does large damage can probably get us close to 50k. Normally, self buffed only , my group wards are around 20k.</p><p>Yes shamans do have some issues, but then any othe class has. We are very well equipped for our role though and we certainly do not suffer when we have to heal group wide damage.</p><p>Solo healing instances ... you name it we can do it. Raid healing, most raids have shamans in pretty much every group</p><p>I remember solo healing cella ( and that can be brutal, especially the snakes and the queen at the end) , at lvl 86 or 87 in TSO T2 legendary gear with 160 AA.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Get back to me when you've solo healed Wing 3.</p><p>I never said Shaman "can't" do group wide damage, I said they were not as effective as other classes. </p><p>I never said Shaman weren't exceptional healers in heroic content, in fact they are, but then again, I've solo healed all the heroic instances on my Fury too so that's not really a great barometer of effectiveness at this point.</p><p>Shaman have some tools that help them bridge the gap, but on aggregate, Shaman will wind up with more deaths in their group than a similarly skilled and equipped Druid - and probably Cleric - when trying to be a solo healer.</p>

[x82nd77]

<p>I think there are a lot of good points made in this thread, but in the back of my mind think it is all pointless.  It is almost cute that people still believe the devs care about class balance or broken mechanics anymore.  I haven't seen any indication of this for the last year and a half at least. We have had many classes beyond broken and others at god like status now for that long and there has been no hint at "fixing" the situation.  Look at about half of the 24 classes and their use in raids, or even some in groups.... look at the dot classes, rangers, and non-melee upgrades.  </p><p>I think continuing to bring these problems to light is a great thing... but go into knowing that in the end it doesn't really matter.</p>

[Krilinye]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Get back to me when you've solo healed Wing 3.</p><p>I never said Shaman "can't" do group wide damage, I said they were not as effective as other classes.</p><p>I never said Shaman weren't exceptional healers in heroic content, in fact they are, but then again, I've solo healed all the heroic instances on my Fury too so that's not really a great barometer of effectiveness at this point.</p><p><strong>Shaman have some tools that help them bridge the gap, but on aggregate, Shaman will wind up with more deaths in their group than a similarly skilled and equipped Druid - and probably Cleric - when trying to be a solo healer.</strong></p></blockquote><p>Must be doing something wrong then. No doubt i love my warden for grp heals and such, but right after my warden comes my Mystic for grp healing. Time wards properly and its a piece of cake, and after the SF AAs (Ancestral Channeling) its become even easyer with a almost insta cast grp complete heal. The class i favor least for grp healing is probably my inquisitor, reactives just doesnt cut it on squishies. Rather have a 17k grp ward than a reactive that heals for a max of 4 or 5k.</p><p>I do agree tho that for a druid its more of a /faceroll keyboard and laugh as your grp is completely healed, but i wouldnt say shamans have it any harder than other healers.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>An emergency group heal is not a tool that makes a Shaman a good group healer.  A Group Ward, in terms of protecting an entire group, is pretty much useless.  It protects the first person well, and depending on the strength of the AE and resists of people involved, the second person fairly well.  After that, the Group Ward is *gone*.</p><p>Again, I *never* claimed that Shaman couldn't do it.  I said that it was more difficult on a Shaman, and that on aggregate, you're going to see more deaths in a Shaman solo healed group than a Druid one, given equal skill / gear.</p>

[Raahl]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I read the fighter section, laughed, and didn't read on.</p><p>There are soo many generalizations that are categorically untrue, I didn't see the point in continueing.</p></blockquote><p>Yup.  Same here.</p><p>The OP is so off on so many things about fighters.   Especially Guardians being the best tank.  By far SK/Pal/Zerk are better plate tanks, because of equal survivability and superior DPS/aggro management.</p>

[Griffildur]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>An emergency group heal is not a tool that makes a Shaman a good group healer.  A Group Ward, in terms of protecting an entire group, is pretty much useless.  It protects the first person well, and depending on the strength of the AE and resists of people involved, the second person fairly well.  After that, the Group Ward is *gone*.</p><p>Again, I *never* claimed that Shaman couldn't do it.  I said that it was more difficult on a Shaman, and that on aggregate, you're going to see more deaths in a Shaman solo healed group than a Druid one, given equal skill / gear.</p></blockquote><p>You're making the same generalisations here as the OP is. "you're going to see more deaths in a Shaman solo healed group than a Druid one" , what the heck is that ? I completely disagree.</p>

[Lark42]

<p>You are generalizing between the shamans too much and not fully characterizing our heal mechanics in raids/groups. I just wanted to correct a few errors in your post while making a few points of my own with regards to healing as a shaman.</p><p>A) <strong>Defilers get the heal on ward cast, not Mystics.</strong> And no, Defilers do not get this through AA; they get it through their mythical epic.</p><p>B) <strong>The total healing potential of the Group Ward is pathetically low compared to the total healing potential of reactives and regens (do the math and you'll see it clearly). </strong>The group ward is ideally used to protect against spike against a single target. I'm not downplaying its important in preventing spike in a group. Group ward is great if a member of the group can be oneshotted by AEs. The relatively low healing potential of wards just means that shamans are less capable of solo healing their group when their total healing capacity comes into play (i.e. the encounters have sufficient damage output to break through their wards). I believe this is a fair tradeoff given the unique advantage we have in our ability to counter spike damage.</p><p>C) <strong>Vulnerable group members can "gobble up" a good portion of our Group Ward, preventing it from countering spike in the rest of the group effectively.</strong> This is most apparent when you have a poorly equipped group member or pet classes in your group. Pets that are hit by AEs will share in the group ward, reducing the ward available for each member of the group when the AE goes off. Strikethrough by raid mobs can oftentimes render AE immunity of the pets ineffective as well.</p><p>D) <strong>Shamans have the >LOWEST< healing potential of any of the priests. </strong>This is an expansion to point B) and may seem counter-intuitive because it is not uncommon to see shamans dominating the heal parse. The reason why shamans will often "top the heal parse" is because of Wards are capable of blocking other heals from going through. If the encounter doesn't output enough DPS to shatter the wards consitently, the other healers will have NO opportunity to heal because damage won't be going through (unless they have Ward procs on their equipment. This is yet another reason why everyone wants Ward procs on their gear =P). The bottom-line is this--Shamans wards are far weaker in healing potential (the max they can heal in a single spell cast). They are extremely valuable however in preventing spike damage and increase survivability of a raid tremendously. They also tend to [insert expletive here]block other healers in raids where the dps output of the encounter is not sufficient to shatter the wards constantly.</p><p><strong>E) Shamans need to stop overhealing people</strong>. This is related to some of the issues I brought up in D). In a lot of raid/group content, the tank or group really isn't in any danger of being spiked out due to lack of heals. I see so many shamans continuing to do nothing but heal the entire time, throwing up layer upon layer of wards on the tank/group where there is no way that those wards are going to shatter. What you are essentially doing is preventing any other form of healing from going through, which wastes the efforts of other healers. Also, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">you are wasting your own time/power when you could be using it doing something useful like attacking the mob or debuffing it</span> (I have heard other shamans say they don't want to debuff the mob because it lower their heal parse...I'm not joking).</p><p>That's all for now. I just wanted to get a few of those things out. Let me know if you feel I am not addressing any critical factors.</p><p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Heal parse is meaningless.  How many people died in each group should be the bottom (*@#ing line for any group in a raid.</p><p>And in that scenario, Shaman are not very effective.  Group Wards don't work like most people believe they do.</p><p>Shaman are exceptional at leveling out the damage spikes on a single target.  Shaman are not great at dealing with widespread damage in a group.  They can generally do it, but I assure you they work twice as hard as a Druid to do so, and in some cases they just don't have the necessary tools to do it.</p></blockquote><p>wrong on so many levels, i don't even know where to begin.</p><p>Let's see</p><p>1. Group Wards ... have quite a decent group heal once the ward finishes casting. - heal gained via aa</p><p>2. Group Heal spell, large amount, relatively quick recast.</p><p>3. Huge Group Heal gained via AA - Ancestral Channeling - our shaman end of line ability. it's an "oh sh*t button" really and recast is longer.</p><p>4. Single wards - decent heal as well not just ward. - heal is also via aa</p><p>5. Group wards - via aa - Spiritual Leadership.</p><p>6. Various other wards / group heals / single target wards, gained through spells, aa, procs , melee.</p><p>7. Our wards / heals proc other wards and heals, or larger amounts of next heal / ward we cast.</p><p>8. Ritual skill gained via aa, adds to the size of our wards / heals to make them even bigger. I have it macroed to my wards / group heals so it's used every time it's up.</p><p>All these crit, so with a 100% crit chance they will always crit ... and yeah I know how we get a bit screwed with the crit bonus but even so they crit every time.</p><p>Group cure, via aa is 10s recast which is quite enough.</p><p>Dog - has group ward ( small value but still it's almost always up. he has group cure as well and that sure helps with curing. He triggers aoe block as well. Yeah they may not be 100% reliable and they are not guaranteed to be up when needed but still, they are up quite a bit.</p><p>Finally, our group wards get very big. I am no where near having the best equipment, but I've had group wards of up to 35k and it's not a rare occurence. Having a fury  that does large damage can probably get us close to 50k. Normally, self buffed only , my group wards are around 20k.</p><p>Yes shamans do have some issues, but then any othe class has. We are very well equipped for our role though and we certainly do not suffer when we have to heal group wide damage.</p><p>Solo healing instances ... you name it we can do it. Raid healing, most raids have shamans in pretty much every group</p><p>I remember solo healing cella ( and that can be brutal, especially the snakes and the queen at the end) , at lvl 86 or 87 in TSO T2 legendary gear with 160 AA.</p></blockquote>

[Dreadpatch]

My subjective point of view on this subjective point of view is that the OP's statements are not all that accurate.

[LardLord]

<p>It's funny how well the priests are balanced now, where people go back and fourth like this.  Compare that to TSO or RoK, where everyone knew the strong healers compared to the weak healers.</p><p>By the way, we had a Mystic solo heal a group on our first Yael kill...and no, I don't think that's evidence that Mystics are grossly OP or anything.  We also often run our MT group without a Shaman (Warden + Templar instead), including on some of our first kills. /shrug</p>

[Lark42]

<p>Nobody is saying that the Shamans can't solo heal. I do it all the time with my mystic. The most common claim I am hearing is that shamans are <strong>less capable</strong> of solo healing, which I'd say is not surprising given their healing mechanics. Personally, I can solo heal all the heroic instances available at the moment. A well enough equipped/AA'd priest be able to accomplish that w/o an issue; it just may take more effort or gear/AA for a typical shaman to manage that.</p><p>As for raids, it's not uncommon for our shamans to solo heal a group, however, we aren't tackling Hard Mode material at the moment, so I can't comment on that feasibility. Anyone care to share their experience with Hard Mode mobs and group solo healing? Remember to state how well equipped/AA you are in addition to your class as how well geared up/AA'd up you are is undeniably a massive factor in determining what you are capable of.</p><p><cite>Quabi@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's funny how well the priests are balanced now, where people go back and fourth like this.  Compare that to TSO or RoK, where everyone knew the strong healers compared to the weak healers.</p><p>By the way, we had a Mystic solo heal a group on our first Yael kill...and no, I don't think that's evidence that Mystics are grossly OP or anything.  We also often run our MT group without a Shaman (Warden + Templar instead), including on some of our first kills. /shrug</p></blockquote>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Lark42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Anyone care to share their experience with Hard Mode mobs and group solo healing?</p></blockquote><p>Yael is the boss of the expansion. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>The thing is you can't classify healers as "X class is great at solo healing!" and "Y class is great at tank healing!"  Each class has a diverse set of tools that vary greatly in usefulness from fight to fight.  T-Shell is great on some fights, whether you're solo healing or tank healing, but it's virtually useless on others.  A second group cure is great on some fights, even in tank groups, but it's not a significant advantage on others.  A Fury's Pact of Nature is an amazing tool for solo healing a fight like Construct HM, but it's not a significant advantage on fights where healers are not incapacitated.  The list goes on and on. </p>

[Griffildur]

<p><cite>Lark42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You are generalizing between the shamans too much and not fully characterizing our heal mechanics in raids/groups. I just wanted to correct a few errors in your post while making a few points of my own with regards to healing as a shaman.</p><p>A) <strong>Defilers get the heal on ward cast, not Mystics.</strong> And no, Defilers do not get this through AA; they get it through their mythical epic.</p><p>B) <strong>The total healing potential of the Group Ward is pathetically low compared to the total healing potential of reactives and regens (do the math and you'll see it clearly). </strong>The group ward is ideally used to protect against spike against a single target. I'm not downplaying its important in preventing spike in a group. Group ward is great if a member of the group can be oneshotted by AEs. The relatively low healing potential of wards just means that shamans are less capable of solo healing their group when their total healing capacity comes into play (i.e. the encounters have sufficient damage output to break through their wards). I believe this is a fair tradeoff given the unique advantage we have in our ability to counter spike damage.</p><p>C) <strong>Vulnerable group members can "gobble up" a good portion of our Group Ward, preventing it from countering spike in the rest of the group effectively.</strong> This is most apparent when you have a poorly equipped group member or pet classes in your group. Pets that are hit by AEs will share in the group ward, reducing the ward available for each member of the group when the AE goes off. Strikethrough by raid mobs can oftentimes render AE immunity of the pets ineffective as well.</p><p>D) <strong>Shamans have the >LOWEST< healing potential of any of the priests. </strong>This is an expansion to point B) and may seem counter-intuitive because it is not uncommon to see shamans dominating the heal parse. The reason why shamans will often "top the heal parse" is because of Wards are capable of blocking other heals from going through. If the encounter doesn't output enough DPS to shatter the wards consitently, the other healers will have NO opportunity to heal because damage won't be going through (unless they have Ward procs on their equipment. This is yet another reason why everyone wants Ward procs on their gear =P). The bottom-line is this--Shamans wards are far weaker in healing potential (the max they can heal in a single spell cast). They are extremely valuable however in preventing spike damage and increase survivability of a raid tremendously. They also tend to [insert expletive here]block other healers in raids where the dps output of the encounter is not sufficient to shatter the wards constantly.</p><p><strong>E) Shamans need to stop overhealing people</strong>. This is related to some of the issues I brought up in D). In a lot of raid/group content, the tank or group really isn't in any danger of being spiked out due to lack of heals. I see so many shamans continuing to do nothing but heal the entire time, throwing up layer upon layer of wards on the tank/group where there is no way that those wards are going to shatter. What you are essentially doing is preventing any other form of healing from going through, which wastes the efforts of other healers. Also, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">you are wasting your own time/power when you could be using it doing something useful like attacking the mob or debuffing it</span> (I have heard other shamans say they don't want to debuff the mob because it lower their heal parse...I'm not joking).</p><p>That's all for now. I just wanted to get a few of those things out. Let me know if you feel I am not addressing any critical factors.</p></blockquote><p>A) Kindred Restoration (applies to group ward) - adds a secondary heal effec. The mythic adds one heal on both group and single ward and we get a second heal via AA on both wards.</p><p>B) Your regens means crap all if you cannot block the initial hit or the hard hitting aoe's</p><p>C) learn to raid, poorly equipped raid / group members should not run in and eat the tank wards. Keep them at a safe distance.</p><p>D) I am not playing other heals, but our healing ability is good enough</p><p>E) that is neither here not there. If your shamans do this on all encounters then they need to learn how to function. Only on hard mode i might spam wards as soon as they are up, because by the time the cast is ready, the tank already ate 1 aoe which ruined the previous ward. Happens rarely though, on some hard encounters.</p><p>also, many shamans are not wasting anything since they know when to ward and when to debuff / dps. Stop assuming this is how everyone plays.</p>

[Lark42]

<p>A) Notice I said "only defilers get the heal on ward <strong>cast</strong>". I said nothing about termination. To my knowledge, Defilers do not get any heal on ward <strong>cast</strong> through any AA line. I play a Mystic, however, so I may be mistaken.</p><p>B) I'm not sure if you are trying to present an argument against my point or not as your statement in complete agreement with the points I've made. You may want to read my entire argument, not just the bolded regions.</p><p>C) Sometimes you must bring under-equipped raiders. The several individuals in particular that I am thinking of do NOT run in and get hit by close-range AEs. They stand back and eat wards from a distance when mass AEs hit them. Pets also pose a problem because they tend to have weaker resists/defenses than their owners (which is anticipated to be fixed with DoV when shared stastitics as implemented). And no, AE immunity isn't always a reliable way to prevent pets from eating up wards. If a raid boss has Strikethrough, they may bypass the AE immunity and force the weakly defended pets (like Dogdog) to "gobble up" the ward.</p><p>In addition---I play on a PvP server as a Mystic. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I think it helps illustrate the problem quite well. You can greatly take advantage of the Group Ward mechanic by targetting pathetically weak defenses of Dogdog. If the Shaman throws up a Group Ward, attack the dog. You'll blow through the Ward 10x faster because the dog has pathetically weak defenses. If you plan to AE, target the Dog and AE through it as it will render the AE immunity useless since you are directly targetting it and the Dogdog will eat up any shared wards by the group, causing your AE dmg spell to hit the rest of the enemy team for more than it would otherwise.</p><p>D) It sounds like we are both in agreement here. Shamans heal "well enough". We may not have the total healing potential of other classes, but we have the added utility of being able to counter spike damage. I feel this is a fair tradeoff.</p><p>E) I did not mean to imply that <em>all </em>Shamans are guilty of this. Just a good majority of the Shamans I've personally observed. In raids, it is not uncommon for people to over-emphasize the numbers on the parse, attributing their personal value to what the parser can show them (usually in DPS or HPS). Given that, many people will underuse certain valuable techniques because it lowers how well they are represented on parses (sometimes debuffs are sacrificed for constant healing, simply because debuffs don't contribute to your parse...they subtract from it).</p><p>We both agree that constantly having wards up on the tank is necessary when they are constantly being shattered by the boss mob, putting the tank in danger of being spiked out. As qualified in my statements, overwarding is only possible in encounters where you can completely block-off the ability of the boss mob to deal damage. You'll probably find the other healers are better represented on the heal parse in those hard-mode fights.</p><p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lark42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You are generalizing between the shamans too much and not fully characterizing our heal mechanics in raids/groups. I just wanted to correct a few errors in your post while making a few points of my own with regards to healing as a shaman.</p><p>A) <strong>Defilers get the heal on ward cast, not Mystics.</strong> And no, Defilers do not get this through AA; they get it through their mythical epic.</p><p>B) <strong>The total healing potential of the Group Ward is pathetically low compared to the total healing potential of reactives and regens (do the math and you'll see it clearly). </strong>The group ward is ideally used to protect against spike against a single target. I'm not downplaying its important in preventing spike in a group. Group ward is great if a member of the group can be oneshotted by AEs. The relatively low healing potential of wards just means that shamans are less capable of solo healing their group when their total healing capacity comes into play (i.e. the encounters have sufficient damage output to break through their wards). I believe this is a fair tradeoff given the unique advantage we have in our ability to counter spike damage.</p><p>C) <strong>Vulnerable group members can "gobble up" a good portion of our Group Ward, preventing it from countering spike in the rest of the group effectively.</strong> This is most apparent when you have a poorly equipped group member or pet classes in your group. Pets that are hit by AEs will share in the group ward, reducing the ward available for each member of the group when the AE goes off. Strikethrough by raid mobs can oftentimes render AE immunity of the pets ineffective as well.</p><p>D) <strong>Shamans have the >LOWEST< healing potential of any of the priests. </strong>This is an expansion to point B) and may seem counter-intuitive because it is not uncommon to see shamans dominating the heal parse. The reason why shamans will often "top the heal parse" is because of Wards are capable of blocking other heals from going through. If the encounter doesn't output enough DPS to shatter the wards consitently, the other healers will have NO opportunity to heal because damage won't be going through (unless they have Ward procs on their equipment. This is yet another reason why everyone wants Ward procs on their gear =P). The bottom-line is this--Shamans wards are far weaker in healing potential (the max they can heal in a single spell cast). They are extremely valuable however in preventing spike damage and increase survivability of a raid tremendously. They also tend to [insert expletive here]block other healers in raids where the dps output of the encounter is not sufficient to shatter the wards constantly.</p><p><strong>E) Shamans need to stop overhealing people</strong>. This is related to some of the issues I brought up in D). In a lot of raid/group content, the tank or group really isn't in any danger of being spiked out due to lack of heals. I see so many shamans continuing to do nothing but heal the entire time, throwing up layer upon layer of wards on the tank/group where there is no way that those wards are going to shatter. What you are essentially doing is preventing any other form of healing from going through, which wastes the efforts of other healers. Also, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">you are wasting your own time/power when you could be using it doing something useful like attacking the mob or debuffing it</span> (I have heard other shamans say they don't want to debuff the mob because it lower their heal parse...I'm not joking).</p><p>That's all for now. I just wanted to get a few of those things out. Let me know if you feel I am not addressing any critical factors.</p></blockquote><p>A) Kindred Restoration (applies to group ward) - adds a secondary heal effec. The mythic adds one heal on both group and single ward and we get a second heal via AA on both wards.</p><p>B) Your regens means crap all if you cannot block the initial hit or the hard hitting aoe's</p><p>C) learn to raid, poorly equipped raid / group members should not run in and eat the tank wards. Keep them at a safe distance.</p><p>D) I am not playing other heals, but our healing ability is good enough</p><p>E) that is neither here not there. If your shamans do this on all encounters then they need to learn how to function. Only on hard mode i might spam wards as soon as they are up, because by the time the cast is ready, the tank already ate 1 aoe which ruined the previous ward. Happens rarely though, on some hard encounters.</p><p>also, many shamans are not wasting anything since they know when to ward and when to debuff / dps. Stop assuming this is how everyone plays.</p></blockquote>

[Lark42]

<p>Nobody is saying that classes don't have diverse sets of tools that vary in usefulness. That appears to be pretty well understood by all experienced players.</p><p>While each class has unique abilities that  predipose them to greater success in particular fights, you can still characertize an average level of capability in certain environments (e.g. solo, group, raid). Many people will agree that Inquisitors are far more capable at solo content than a Defiler. Inquisitors have more offensive options, durability, control effects, and healing output capability than a Defiler. Noone is implying that Defilers are inferior just because they aren't as predisposed towards solo content.</p><p>When it comes to group/raid environments, there are general tendancies for what is required as well. In solo healing group content you typically need to be able to:</p><p>A) <strong>Keep the whole group alive without the assistance of other healers</strong>. This often involves having sufficient enough group healing output to keep the whole group up while providing enough additional healing typically required for your tank. This is especially apparent when the group content involves AEs of any type or adds in a fight that won't stay aggro'd on the tank. Wards and reactives are not as effective at healing group-wide damage when compared to group regens. In addition, Wards fall behind in <em>total healing potential</em> (count the amount of healing done via a group ward vs. a group reactive or regen). This doesn't mean that Shamans can't group heal; it just means they will require more effort/better gear to achieve the same ease of group healing as your typical Druid.</p><p>B) <strong>You need to have a good source of power regen as once you are out of power people start dying</strong>. Arguably, Wardens have a near infinite source of power while healing. In fact, most Priests have some form or another of keeping their power constantly high while maintaining a high. Inquisitors and Furies can achieve near unlimited power while healing <em>as long as they do not activate key offensive abilities </em>(you know what I'm referring to inqies and furies <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) Templars and Mystics have a harder time maintaining a constant feed of power. Mystics may have Spirit Tap, but the long reuse timer makes it less useful as a power regen tool in group content and more of tool in fights to overcome obstacles (for example, throw in spirit tap and just DPS out the mob while not worrying about healing). I am less familiar with the tools Templars have for regenerating power, so a person familiar with Templars should fill in the blanks for me =). When you consider the power regen capabilities by archetype, you will notice that both Druids are capable of keeping their power constantly high (provided Furies moderate how offensive they go). This gives them the assurance of being able to heal constantly without worrying about truly running out of power.</p><p>C) <strong>The ability to prevent/break out of control effects is a powerful tool in solo healing</strong>. If you are stifled/stunned/feared and you are the only healer the group can rely on, the group is in danger. Through their AA paths, Druids have fantastic measures to counter stun/stifle for not only themselves, but their whole group. This gives them an added degree of reliability when control effects come into play. Templars have Sanctuary while Inquisitors and Defilers can break out of control effects while already affected by them (the whole group can be freed by the Defiler). Mystics have a single short-duration, single-target control effect prevention spell that cannot even be cast while underneath the control effect.</p><p>D) <strong>In many raid/group encounters, it is necessary to have multiple group cures to effectively survive the content</strong>. Most raiders are familiar with this situation. If detrimental effect A, B, or C are left on your group members long enough, they die. The only effective way to keep it off your group is to have multiple group cures available. The shamans have a single group cure that they can rely on (the dog group cure is not even remotely reliable. It is a perk, not a necessity). Yet again, you'll notice that both Druids get multiple group cures. The inquisitor epic also makes them fantastic group curers.</p><p>Given the factors I've outlined above:</p><p>YES,<strong> </strong><em>you absolutely can make the claim that</em><strong> </strong>"[Insert Class Name Here] is more/less capable at solo/group/raid/[insert environment here]".</p><p>You may have noticed that the demands of solo group healing are especially easy to meet for the Druid classes. This doesn't mean they are "OP'd". It just means they are well disposed to group healing. These class differences are what make EQ2 interesting. A game where all healers were on equal grounds 100% of the time wouldn't be interesting. Embrace the class differences, learn to recognize them, and play to your strengths.</p><p><cite>Quabi@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lark42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Anyone care to share their experience with Hard Mode mobs and group solo healing?</p></blockquote><p>Yael is the boss of the expansion. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>The thing is you can't classify healers as "X class is great at solo healing!" and "Y class is great at tank healing!"  Each class has a diverse set of tools that vary greatly in usefulness from fight to fight.  T-Shell is great on some fights, whether you're solo healing or tank healing, but it's virtually useless on others.  A second group cure is great on some fights, even in tank groups, but it's not a significant advantage on others.  A Fury's Pact of Nature is an amazing tool for solo healing a fight like Construct HM, but it's not a significant advantage on fights where healers are not incapacitated.  The list goes on and on. </p></blockquote>

[Lalen]

<p><cite>Raahl wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I read the fighter section, laughed, and didn't read on.</p><p>There are soo many generalizations that are categorically untrue, I didn't see the point in continueing.</p></blockquote><p>Yup.  Same here.</p><p>The OP is so off on so many things about fighters.   Especially Guardians being the best tank.  By far SK/Pal/Zerk are better plate tanks, because of equal survivability and superior DPS/aggro management.</p></blockquote><p>I don't know about the paladin part.  Paladins, IMO, are simply lore fluff now days.  For a while I've been boxing a SK and Pally side-by-side just to kind of see what the diffrences are like (yeah its a borrowed toon).  The my pal's gear is better, adornments are much better, and all spells/buffs are expert+ (SK buffs are all adept except 1).  My pally buffs up to 16K hp, the SK buffs up to 23K hp. There is a problem there.  On the real stats that count however such as the Mitigation and Avoidance, again, the paladin comes in with better mitigation gear, higher agiliy, same skill levels unbuffed but somehow falling about 2K behind in mitigation and 5K!!!!! behind in avoidance! </p><p>Again, paladins are merely lore fluff and nothing more.  Sure they can solo easyish mobs, they can cast all their aoe agro stuff, but when they get that agro there is no comparison to a SK and please don't get me started on a pally heal -- they are all jokes.  The best ability a paladin really gets, I guess a SK gets the same thing, Kick, Bash and AOE's.  The rest of the abilities could be completely removed from my spell book and I'd hardly notice.</p>

[Lark42]

<p>To a certain degree, I feel that Paladins are unfairly lumped together with Shadowknights in the "Crusaders are OP'd" complaint. Paladin heals should be a defining feature of the class--particularly "emergency heals" as they really emphasize the heroic nature of the class. However, if one does a review of Paladins heals these days in a group with proficient healers, they are likely to be disappointed. In addition, I think Paladins should have reduced offense in place of higher defense and Shadowknights have reduced defense in favor of offense, however Shadowknights seem to retain a high degree of both! Paladins? In this current state, I believe it is fair to say, "whatever a Paladin can do, a Shadowknight can do better" (with the exception of Rez...Only Paladins can rez).</p><p>That being said, Paladins are Crusaders and Crusaders are currently capable of everything--They have high survivability, can dish out damage (single target and AE), hold aggro, break-out-of and prevent control effects, add substantial buffs to the group, and provide utility. If it were simply a case of "Jack-of-all trades, Master of None" tank classes, that wouldn't be a problem. However, they are highly proficient in all of the above, and in some cases, do ALL of them better than the other tanks. In fact, I challenge anyone to name one or two things in my above list that the Brawlers are more unequivocally more proficient at, except snap aggro, which doesn't really fall under "hold aggro" anyways.</p><blockquote><p>I don't know about the paladin part.  Paladins, IMO, are simply lore fluff now days.  For a while I've been boxing a SK and Pally side-by-side just to kind of see what the diffrences are like (yeah its a borrowed toon).  The my pal's gear is better, adornments are much better, and all spells/buffs are expert+ (SK buffs are all adept except 1).  My pally buffs up to 16K hp, the SK buffs up to 23K hp. There is a problem there.  On the real stats that count however such as the Mitigation and Avoidance, again, the paladin comes in with better mitigation gear, higher agiliy, same skill levels unbuffed but somehow falling about 2K behind in mitigation and 5K!!!!! behind in avoidance! </p><p>Again, paladins are merely lore fluff and nothing more.  Sure they can solo easyish mobs, they can cast all their aoe agro stuff, but when they get that agro there is no comparison to a SK and please don't get me started on a pally heal -- they are all jokes.  The best ability a paladin really gets, I guess a SK gets the same thing, Kick, Bash and AOE's.  The rest of the abilities could be completely removed from my spell book and I'd hardly notice.</p></blockquote>

[Aull]

<p><cite>Lark42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>To a certain degree, I feel that Paladins are unfairly lumped together with Shadowknights in the "Crusaders are OP'd" complaint. Paladin heals should be a defining feature of the class--particularly "emergency heals" as they really emphasize the heroic nature of the class. However, if one does a review of Paladins heals these days in a group with proficient healers, they are likely to be disappointed. In addition,<span style="color: #00ff00; font-size: x-small;"><strong> I think Paladins should have reduced offense in place of higher defense and Shadowknights have reduced defense in favor of offense</strong></span>, however Shadowknights seem to retain a high degree of both! Paladins? In this current state, I believe it is fair to say, "whatever a Paladin can do, a Shadowknight can do better" (with the exception of Rez...Only Paladins can rez).</p><p>That being said, Paladins are Crusaders and Crusaders are currently capable of everything--They have high survivability, can dish out damage (single target and AE), hold aggro, break-out-of and prevent control effects, add substantial buffs to the group, and provide utility. If it were simply a case of "Jack-of-all trades, Master of None" tank classes, that wouldn't be a problem. However, they are highly proficient in all of the above, and in some cases, do ALL of them better than the other tanks. In fact, I challenge anyone to name one or two things in my above list that the Brawlers are more unequivocally more proficient at, except snap aggro, which doesn't really fall under "hold aggro" anyways. </p></blockquote><p>That green highlight is how it should be. It gives some individuality to each sub-class. If both sub-classes are equal in everything then why have two to begin with.</p><p>"whatever a Paladin can do, a Shadowknight can do better". This is where it is wrong. It should be there are areas that a paladin will do better than a shadowknight and there are areas where a shadowknight will do better than a paladin.</p><p>There should be trade offs for each sub-class within a class. While they should be similar at the class level they should be entirely oposite at the sub-class level. Each sub-class should be special and not a clone of their counterpart.</p>