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Yunna

03-03-2012, 11:34 AM

I've been trying to understand how things work in EQ2, especially the reality of classes and how they fit into high end content at this moment. One thing that puzzles me is: what role does priest DPS play in the success of a raid?On a number of ocassions I've seen it said that inquisitors are the most desirable because they have good DPS on top of good cures & heals. Does this mean the DPS provided by healers is needed / significant for raids? Are healers expected to DPS in this game?Setting aside abilities and classes that use meleeing to generate heals, is raid healing in this game relaxed enough that a healer will do anything besides cast a constant stream of heals/cures?And departing a little from the DPS topic -- it sounds like curing is a critical aspect of healing. Is this because timely curing reduces the ammount of healing (a lot of incoming damage in the form of DoTs/debuffs)? Or is it an additional requirement to healing that cannot be compensated for with more HPS? (for example mezzes / stuns / cure-or-die effects)

S_M_I_T_E

03-03-2012, 04:49 PM

Larkverdin

03-05-2012, 02:36 PM

It really boils down to which priest class you're talking about to be honest. Some classes are able to generate enough DPS for it to honestly make a bit of a difference, IMO. Now, if you're expecting to pull the same kinds of numbers that say a warlock or a necromancer are pulling, you're playing the wrong archtype.Just throwing these (priest only) numbers out there for comparison sake. Please take into account, this just one EM fight and most of the classes listed are fully EM geared with a few HM pieces. As S_M_I_T_E said, if you're overgeared for the content, you're going to steamroll it:Kreegar Krikneck: (04:20)Fury: 66.2k DPSMystic: 47.5k DPSMystic: 38k DPSWarden: 26.6k DPSDefiler: 13.6k DPSI would honestly say that yes, if you're a priest class, you should be DPSing if you want to be at the most beneficial to your raid force. As you can see above, some classes are better at it than others, but that 13.6k DPS at the end still makes a difference in the long run of an almost 5 minute fight. As far as curing goes, inq and furies are the best curers. We get the most in terms of sheer number of cures available, and our recast is the lowest. As far as a difference between inq and furies, I haven't had any inq get near the DPS that I've been putting out lately (I'm the fury in the above parse). That said, you need to think about whether or not you want to melee to do your DPS (inq) or cast from range (fury).In response to your curing question, the answer is both basically. In EM content, it's not nearly as bad, basically an AE will come in the form of a DoT that does massive amounts of damage very quickly. In EM you get a few seconds to react to said DoT before it will just straight kill anyone who has it on them, I.E. it doesn't matter how many HPs they have. I'm talking roughly about 3-4 seconds, which doesn't sound like much, but time it on your stopwatch, it's longer than you think. Now, in the HM content that I've experienced this far, basically everything gets ramped up. You go from 3-4 seconds of leway to literally about 1 sec, 2 at the very most for a class with massive HP. What S_M_I_T_E was talking about with the 'precognition' is known as pre-curing. Basically, you watch the mob's casting bar. When their AE spell gets to approx. 3/4 of the way through the cast, you begin casting your cure. This takes a little bit of practice to get right as each person's casting speed stat is a little different. But the idea is that when their AE casting bar is finished, your cure should finish right after it. That way the AE is on your group mates for no more than a few tenths of a second, thus eliminating any chance for it to tick and do damage.Also, with regards to curing, I'll just throw this out there as a fury (wardens get this ability also). We have access to an AA called Tortise Shell. This is an AE blocker that lasts for approx 30 seconds and will block just about every AE. With high recast stats, my cooldown on this spell is just over a minute. This spell easily saves both my butt, and that of my mage groupmates all the time. When other groups that don't have a druid go down because their healer was too slow to cure, I didn't even have to worry about it because my group had T. Shell. It's an absolutely fantastic AA.

Hene

03-06-2012, 03:53 PM

<cite>Alyana@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been trying to understand how things work in EQ2, especially the reality of classes and how they fit into high end content at this moment. One thing that puzzles me is: what role does priest DPS play in the success of a raid?</blockquote>Priest dps is often a big part of min/maxing and squeezing as much out of your raid as you can. A well played healer can rival tanks and util dps on some easier fights, but they are not going to match or pass a T1 dps'er.Typically, a healer is not 100% max healing/curing all the time, allowing for a lot of time for debuffs and dps. If your raid force has 6 or 8 capable healers that can keep their groups alive and put out some decent dps, you could gain 5-15% or so onto your raidwide dps. On some fights, that just means cutting the time down a bit, but on others, where you have to burn respawning adds on top of the named, this extra dps can do wonders. For example, if your raid force is effectively putting half its dps on adds and half on the named, that extra 5-15% quickly turns into a fight that takes 10-30% less time (kill the adds faster and increase the time spent on the named and get fewer waves of adds, or focus another dps'er on the named and keep the adds dps the same).<cite>Alyana@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>On a number of ocassions I've seen it said that inquisitors are the most desirable because they have good DPS on top of good cures & heals. Does this mean the DPS provided by healers is needed / significant for raids? Are healers expected to DPS in this game?</blockquote>It really depends on the player, group, and situation, but inquisitors do not bring the best dps (although they do have very good group dps buffs). You obviously can't take only inquisitors in a raid. And you're silly if you don't want the variety of buffs and debuffs some other healers bring. Overall, an inquis will typically bring the most reliable cures (with stifle immunity, and CC break on short recast, but fury and warden are close seconds with fast recasst AE block, stun immunity etc) and very good dps buffs, but his dps and debuffs pale in comparison to other healers.I expect healers to dps, but often times, healers have to focus on their primary job: keeping everyone alive and keeping the mobs debuffed.<cite>Alyana@Nektulos wrote:</cite> <blockquote>Setting aside abilities and classes that use meleeing to generate heals, is raid healing in this game relaxed enough that a healer will do anything besides cast a constant stream of heals/cures?</blockquote> Yes. Some progressions fights will be extremely heal intensive and require you to always cast to keep your group alive, cured, and proc'd on, however, pending your class and group setup, you will more than likely have time to do some dps. <cite>Alyana@Nektulos wrote:</cite> <blockquote>And departing a little from the DPS topic -- it sounds like curing is a critical aspect of healing. Is this because timely curing reduces the ammount of healing (a lot of incoming damage in the form of DoTs/debuffs)? Or is it an additional requirement to healing that cannot be compensated for with more HPS? (for example mezzes / stuns / cure-or-die effects)</blockquote> Curse cures are cure-or-die effects a lot of the time, and some detrimentals are cure-or-die as well. Typically, you need to cure detrimental dots or the tick will end up killing people.Back on the topic of healer dps, Larkverdin mentioned Krikneck; until you outgear this encounter, HM Krikneck is a good example of where you will probably be healing a good amount, curing a good amount, and still having a little time to dps on the named/adds.I pulled up a parse from an old kill on HM Krikneck and it looks like combined, the healers did over 10% of the RW dps, and their dps was as follows:Mystic: 107kMystic: 63kWarden: 46.5kDefiler: 31.7kInquis: 10kFury: 8kTemplar: 3kEven with a few of the healers clearly not dps'ing, they were able to add over 10% to dps and cut off a significant portion of time from that fight (killed the adds faster, allowing more dps to go on the named, causing fewer waves of adds to spawn).

S_M_I_T_E

03-06-2012, 04:06 PM

I second all the above with one Caveat OP.Cast Bar watching can be challenging to fit in.I usually found myself so busy making sure there was enough heal cushion for the group watching their health bars, xyz displacement while jousting, debuff overlap cycling on my hotbars, and DPS maximizing that my physical eyes in my real life body never really caught the casting bar that has been recommended by the above poster and others for preactive cures. Add to the fact I run around in High Quality or Higher on raids, get knocked back, instructed to huddle in corners or other camera un-friendly places, and I found it challenging to 'watch' for the cast bars on mobs even on a 27" LCD. I never really found time to look at the mob, only in my peripherial vision or a quick glance for autoattack or facing/aoe considerations. The rest of the time I was watching my hotbars, healthbars, groupchat macros, etc. This might not be the case with a more caster oriented class (fury/templar/defiler) or on some static mobs (no knockbacks, easy camera angle not near a wall). Not to mention the TONS of grey attack numbers along with my own orange attack numbers constantly ABOVE the mob making watching for a single bar above the mob challenging to say the least. Maybe you should turn them off but I was never chose to and survived well enough on intuition alone with a 1/2sec and 1s cure available to me. I need the numbers above to time autoattack so optimal visual DPS cues were chosen by me over pre-cure cues. Personal choice.I have a fury as well as an Inq and they are different. Most notably, Inq DPS performance is less dependent on other classes buffing you directly. I think the Devs tuned Mystic/Inq/Warden/Fury to match each other because I've seen them all knock on 50-80K depending on the fight in the same raid force within 3K of each other in the same EM gear. Only Templar/Defiler have gotten the DPS shaft in DOV. Defiler in EM gear is 1/2 the DPS of a Mystic in EM played by the same player; If reds need a name, come bother me in game I'll give you the reference. The melee ones feel like they have lower BPS for each unit of DPS shown which makes them seem easier.BPS = Buttons Per SecondI know my BPS per DPS is more on my Fury than my Inq. Add to that the cushion of plate armor, divine guidance (mario with the star), cure while move, passive DPS (autoattack), etc. and bluntly the Inq can do more outside of current non-24x content solo with less player effort than non-plates.I only mention that since people sometimes want to enter raid forces to gear a main to be able to trivialize non-current-raid content to have a plat income to feed alts or actual class wanted to play. If that is a secondary goal choose a melee like Inq/Warden/Mystic. Inq has even more solo cushion due to some of the things I outline which is why it is the poor mans bruiser. I know my Fury is a SOB to try and plat farm on due to lack of quick cure, divine guidance (mario with the star), low mitigation (solo you are tanking), casting interrupts, near zero-dps while silenced, etc. Wardens are juicy with their near infinite power which can come in handy but I could never bring myself to want to switch teams to non-plate since players of any class can't do jack when feared,etc. and it's only your pre-spells and mitigation that lets you wait out the detriment.Cleric Heroic group 'Autopop' is far more useful and effecitve than the KOS line Druid personal 'Autopop' to boot.Honestly, I'm not sure what they're going to do going forward in EQ2 with the healers. Bringing Temps and Defilers up a bit in DPS would bring them inline but so many classes can already kind of do what other classes used to ONLY be able to do that the line is blurring and blurring even more. War runes in EM gear with wards or proc heals only blurred that line further.

S_M_I_T_E

03-06-2012, 04:23 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>I pulled up a parse from an old kill on HM Krikneck and it looks like combined, the healers did over 10% of the RW dps, and their dps was as follows:Mystic: 107kFull Tilt DPS Mystic: 63k2/3 Tilt DPSWarden: 46.5k2/3 Tilt DPSDefiler: 31.7k1/2 Tilt DPSInquis: 10k4/5 Tilt CPS/HPSFury: 8k4/5 Tilt CPS/HPSTemplar: 3kFull Tilt CPS/HPSEven with a few of the healers clearly not dps'ing, they were able to add over 10% to dps and cut off a significant portion of time from that fight (killed the adds faster, allowing more dps to go on the named, causing fewer waves of adds to spawn).</blockquote>This is a great example for the OP.Didn't quite catch their exact gear HM full or (EM/HM) or group composition but probably very reflective of what the players were allowed to do depending on what the other healers were doing.A healers DPS allowance is often dependent on the healing required from the group (mob/encounter) and the presence of another healer on full heal-bot duties. So.... if whoever is a solo healer of a group taking 1/3 cast time healing then DPS might be 50K. If they're a spike emergency healer only who is the 2nd healer in a group then they can spend zero cast time direct healing which is probably the case with the 100K above. If they're in the MT/OT group, cross group curing, etc. they have near zero DPS other than autoattack probably going on like the Clerics above.Nothing is more funny in a PUG or PUR to have two players playing healers in a group each thinking the other had heal-bot duties. Definately funny stuff when that kind of miscommunication happens. It's almost as crazy as a poorly scripted WWF match where a discussion occurs on stage mid-match on which way someone needs to be bodyslammed occurs before a live audience and unedited on camera.

S_M_I_T_E

03-06-2012, 04:38 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>It really depends on the player, group, and situation, but inquisitors do not bring the best dps (although they do have very good group dps buffs). You obviously can't take only inquisitors in a raid. And you're silly if you don't want the variety of buffs and debuffs some other healers bring. Overall, an inquis will typically bring the most reliable cures (with stifle immunity, and CC break on short recast, but fury and warden are close seconds with fast recasst AE block, stun immunity etc) and very good dps buffs, but his dps and debuffs pale in comparison to other healers. (The Inq?)I expect healers to dps, but often times, healers have to focus on their primary job: keeping everyone alive and keeping the mobs debuffed.</blockquote>I second most of this as well. Players I've met who run Druids are more likely to use AOE blockers than players who run Clerics, especially Inqs.The Inq myth has made me so lazy never to learn to apply or time said KOS Cleric AOE blocker line. That would also require me to move my Cleric tree points elsewhere to personal DPS worthless late Agility line abilities. I'd wager that only Defiler and Temps's DPS pale in comparison to any of the others. Debuff wise at the raid level current mechanics don't make skill debuffs as effective or obvious to the masses as hit point debuffs. Honestly, though having 1/3 of a Dispatch up all the time isn't bad from an Inq though even if defense, thaco, str/int/wis reductions, etc. on raid mobs aren't as well received or visible as other debuffs.What this thread needs is someone from the Mechanics SOE team to post DPS disabled raid mobs 'solo'd' down by a script for each class that they used to 'tune' and claim balance. They made Beastlords and they said they'd never do it, maybe they just need to show us 'behind the curtain' on how they come up with gear for each class to band-aid gaps via a DPS manifesto they abandoned several years ago.

Hene

03-06-2012, 06:26 PM

<cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>It really depends on the player, group, and situation, but inquisitors do not bring the best dps (although they do have very good group dps buffs). You obviously can't take only inquisitors in a raid. And you're silly if you don't want the variety of buffs and debuffs some other healers bring. Overall, an inquis will typically bring the most reliable cures (with stifle immunity, and CC break on short recast, but fury and warden are close seconds with fast recasst AE block, stun immunity etc) and very good dps buffs, but his dps and debuffs pale in comparison to other healers. (The Inq?)I expect healers to dps, but often times, healers have to focus on their primary job: keeping everyone alive and keeping the mobs debuffed.</blockquote>I second most of this as well. Players I've met who run Druids are more likely to use AOE blockers than players who run Clerics, especially Inqs.The Inq myth has made me so lazy never to learn to apply or time said KOS Cleric AOE blocker line. That would also require me to move my Cleric tree points elsewhere to personal DPS worthless late Agility line abilities. I'd wager that only Defiler and Temps's DPS pale in comparison to any of the others. </blockquote>I just meant that the inquis puts out nice dps, but can't compare to a fury or mystic in a similar dps setting; and their debuffs are not even comparable to shaman debuffs.I raided as both a mystic and an inquis in this expac and with similar gear and group setups, the mystic would put out more dps hands down. With that said, on low-attendance off nights where one or two groups only have a couple people, the inquis would make up a LOT of that ground since he brings so many of his own dps buffs, that the mystic lacks (haste, dps mod, flurry, etc).Shield ally (the cleric AE blocker) is incredibly useful on a lot of fight, even with the inquis myth cure. On super power drain fights, or when your myth cure is down but a KB is about to hit, or during fights with genuine stuns the AE block can be the difference between letting half of your group die (or come very close), and keeping everyone in the green the whole time. <cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>I pulled up a parse from an old kill on HM Krikneck and it looks like combined, the healers did over 10% of the RW dps, and their dps was as follows:Mystic: 107kFull Tilt DPS Mystic: 63k2/3 Tilt DPSWarden: 46.5k2/3 Tilt DPSDefiler: 31.7k1/2 Tilt DPSInquis: 10k4/5 Tilt CPS/HPSFury: 8k4/5 Tilt CPS/HPSTemplar: 3kFull Tilt CPS/HPSEven with a few of the healers clearly not dps'ing, they were able to add over 10% to dps and cut off a significant portion of time from that fight (killed the adds faster, allowing more dps to go on the named, causing fewer waves of adds to spawn).</blockquote>This is a great example for the OP.Didn't quite catch their exact gear HM full or (EM/HM) or group composition but probably very reflective of what the players were allowed to do depending on what the other healers were doing.A healers DPS allowance is often dependent on the healing required from the group (mob/encounter) and the presence of another healer on full heal-bot duties. So.... if whoever is a solo healer of a group taking 1/3 cast time healing then DPS might be 50K. If they're a spike emergency healer only who is the 2nd healer in a group then they can spend zero cast time direct healing which is probably the case with the 100K above. If they're in the MT/OT group, cross group curing, etc. they have near zero DPS other than autoattack probably going on like the Clerics above.</blockquote>Generally that would be a pretty good disection, but this fight was a bit unorthodox in terms of group setup and so forth. But most of the healers had HM gear upto and including Krikneck (second mystic and templar were lacking a bit of scattered gear as they were apps).MT healers were myself (first mystic) and warden, and OT healers were defiler and inquis. The second mystic was healing dps group with the templar, and the fury was healing the mage group. In this situation, there was not a ton of healing done by any of the healers, so it was a good fight to get in a mild dps burn from any of the healers, some just chose not to participate.

Remeo

03-07-2012, 09:51 PM

Group makeup has a huge affect on DPS. Put an equally geared Inq in your group, with a Dirge, and make sure they know when Stampede is coming...They will easily match and sometimes beat you, depending if flurry procs alot and other RNG factors. I promise.As SMITE said. All the DPS healers are very equal at this point. Its up to gear, group makeup, and player talent to decide if that happens.

S_M_I_T_E

03-07-2012, 11:37 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shield ally (the cleric AE blocker) is incredibly useful on a lot of fight, even with the inquis myth cure. On super power drain fights, or when your myth cure is down but a KB is about to hit, or during fights with genuine stuns the AE block can be the difference between letting half of your group die (or come very close), and keeping everyone in the green the whole time. </blockquote>Mmmm. I am a vocal anti-CM adorn player and I'm also a vocal anti-Inquisitor specced AGI line unless you're solo healing your group. The Shield Ally ability for an individual is 'ok' for that marginal tank in heroic content for a heroic geared Inq without gobs of CB/pot but at the raid level it doesn't create an evasion event often enough to really blip the radar and be worth dropping 10AA in it.As far as 'preventing' AOEs via the endline in Agility as an Inquisitor... Well, it's obvious your Mystic is your Main and not your Inq much like my Inq is my main and that Fury I have is just a pet. A slick Inq uses their 1s cast group cure on a non-knockback non-quick cure event and cycles and saves their half second cast while move cure for the quicker DOT or KB-DOT. Unless you're the solo healer of a group as an Inq (7 healers in your raid force you showed) you just don't need that kind of band-aid. The above poster is spot on. In my raid force I was Top Dog as DPS Healer and the Mystic usually was 10K under me when attempting to DPS full tilt. All non-Temp/Defilers are pretty much equal given the chance.That mystic didn't have his solo spec but as an Inq there really is only one right way to eat the Reese's. My raid spec is my solo spec. Divine Guidance, Group Autobot Pop, Myth Cure, Group Cure, Halcyon, Revered Lands, and Deathless Devotion = Cast an occasional Alleviation. I can count on one hand how many times I had to cast Malevolent Diatriabe in EM even when I was the only healer in the group. If all you need is an occasional Alleviation, the rest of the time you're DPSing or Debuff cycling. RED PEOPLE: <<<<Whoever is doing itemization is going to need some pretty big carrots to get me to turn in EM war rune'd DOV gear that allows me to solo PR/SOH/OOA plat cycling. 50% AOE AT won't make me switch. My capacity to solo old content would be decreased by all those wards that don't 'scale' down when mentored or all those passive heals which provide more HPS than many old raid mobs DPS.>>>>Now in Drunder they dropped me in the MT group and yeah, nothing but Malevolent Diatribe, cure, Penance, Alleviation, Debuff, curse cure, heal some more... to the tune of 11K HPS from me and 12K HPS from the Warden in the same group. Now if that Agility endline blocked curses from HM or kept those HM Class Debuffs up for 'free' or something then that would get my attention. Honestly, the difference in Super Saiyan power between a HM geared DPH in full CM adorns and a EM geared DPH in non-CM adorns isn't large enough to warrant the 'work' of HM encounters as a healer.More power to the people running HM scripts, especially the healers trading class debuffs while doing everything else they're doing but HM gear doesn't trivilize more old content to solo-farm than EM gear does. Honestly, for alot of people uber power solo or casual grouping is part of the draw when not running raid scripts. The payout in HM gear vs old content was too low for me to decide it was worth the effort as a healer. HM as mage DPS player has to be a cushy life compared to that of multitasking healers, or targeting tanks. I assume as a Mystic doing 75K or 115K to a single target while raiding doesn't really translate to more soloing of outdated content. I would fancy a guess that you probably desire what I desire, 100% AOE AT, 300% MA, and keep the 100% cast speed while we're at it. I know I just don't have enough open AOE's to wade through things fast enough when walking over zones like OOA or SOS or whatnot. Having HM gear just wouldn't help me do more of what I would like to do but couldn't years past. Whenever Red people think of making more HM-ish zones they need to reduce the FPM of players needed to succeed. (Focus per Minute) HM in DOV is right on the edge of the human capacity to multitask.

Hene

03-08-2012, 01:05 AM

<cite>Remeo@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Group makeup has a huge affect on DPS. Put an equally geared Inq in your group, with a Dirge, and make sure they know when Stampede is coming...They will easily match and sometimes beat you, depending if flurry procs alot and other RNG factors. I promise.As SMITE said. All the DPS healers are very equal at this point. Its up to gear, group makeup, and player talent to decide if that happens.</blockquote>Could be that I've just never seen an inquis that can dps properly <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />But between the second blue AE and having a pet to get more auto atks and proc, the mystic should almost always be on top, plus I've yet to see any end game inquis parses that match end game mystic parses<cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shield ally (the cleric AE blocker) is incredibly useful on a lot of fight, even with the inquis myth cure. On super power drain fights, or when your myth cure is down but a KB is about to hit, or during fights with genuine stuns the AE block can be the difference between letting half of your group die (or come very close), and keeping everyone in the green the whole time. </blockquote>Mmmm. I am a vocal anti-CM adorn player and I'm also a vocal anti-Inquisitor specced AGI line unless you're solo healing your group. The Shield Ally ability for an individual is 'ok' for that marginal tank in heroic content for a heroic geared Inq without gobs of CB/pot but at the raid level it doesn't create an evasion event often enough to really blip the radar and be worth dropping 10AA in it.As far as 'preventing' AOEs via the endline in Agility as an Inquisitor... Well, it's obvious your Mystic is your Main and not your Inq much like my Inq is my main and that Fury I have is just a pet. </blockquote>Woops, I definitely meant holy shield, dont give a crap about shield ally. But holy shield is extremely useful on several fights (especially when youre solo healing) whether its to keep you from getting power drained, or to allow one of your dps'ers to not have to joust.<cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>A slick Inq uses their 1s cast group cure on a non-knockback non-quick cure event and cycles and saves their half second cast while move cure for the quicker DOT or KB-DOT. Unless you're the solo healer of a group as an Inq (7 healers in your raid force you showed) you just don't need that kind of band-aid.</blockquote>Yeah, I typically only play the inquis when I have to solo heal a group, so the extra "oh crap" spell is really nice

LardLord

03-14-2012, 08:30 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>Priest dps is often a big part of min/maxing and squeezing as much out of your raid as you can. </blockquote>Basically that. Priest DPS will rarely be the difference between winning or losing, but if your entire raid is focused on improving DPS, you're going to want your healers working towards that goal too. Plus, healing is very simple for most of the healers in your raid most of the time, so they will need to focus on other things if they want a challenge.

Oakum

05-07-2012, 02:05 AM

<cite>Quabi@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>Priest dps is often a big part of min/maxing and squeezing as much out of your raid as you can. </blockquote>Basically that. Priest DPS will rarely be the difference between winning or losing, but if your entire raid is focused on improving DPS, you're going to want your healers working towards that goal too. Plus, healing is very simple for most of the healers in your raid most of the time, so they will need to focus on other things if they want a challenge.</blockquote>This thread is sad for the truth in it that SOE pretends not to see considering the relationship of dps between priests.Clerics are healers/buffers, Shaman are healers and debuffers, while druids are healer/dpsers. All you have to do is verify this is look at the spells.Both druids used to significantly out dps all clerics and shamen before they upped the ability of clerics, shaman, and bards so they could solo without a group several years ago. Unfortuneately, they forgot about raising the druids dps back up to where it should be, especially the wardens although Furies have recieved some correction allowing them to dps almost as well as mystics and inquisitors. Wardens are slowly becoming extinct as anything but little played alts though.Wonder if wardens will be as screwed up in EQNext as they have become in EQ2.One note about the parses, people have to keep in mind that whether or not the group they are in is requiring a lot of healing or, as some posts mentioned, if they are even trying to help the raid some extra dps is a factor in those healer dps parses.In a 7 healer raid, 3 in the mt, defiler,, templer, and warden. Would normally be the defiler , the temp is probably full healing/temp buff casting mode, and warden is probaby just casting group heals for aoes and using melee proc heals. Essentially going full out dps, lol. If the mystic that did over 60k dps was in the MT group, then the tank and group was either not taking too much damage or the Temp was doing most of the healing in it.Off tank group, cleric and shaman, cleric probably doing most of the healing the mystic was full out dps. Now it could have been the deflier and inquisitor but if it was, the either one of them was taking an afk during the fight or the OT group was taking more damage then the MT group was.Caster group, taking a lot of aoes keeping fury busy healing, not even trying to dps, or jousting too much to cast. Probably healing or just not dpsing.Melee group probably the inquisitor (since they do have the best melee buffs) haveing to heal a lot and just dpsing by autoattack probably when not jousting or something.Thats what the parse tells me and I have half the healer classes at lvl 90, with my main being a warden at 92. Now I have not raided in quite a while. I have played the game since Dec, 2004 so are familiar with what most priest subclasses can do, including how SOE has screwed up the way druids used to outparse clerics and shamen as mentioned earlier and failed to give Wardens anything that made them useful in raids besides third healer MT groups for content not on farm mode since GU-13.I think most wardens have given up or accepted that they are useless in raids that don't need 3 healer MT groups and cannot even add a decent amount of DPS like they should be able to when not casting heals. We used to be able t before they "fixed" bard/cleric/shaman soloability and in hard group contents, reactives and instant ward preheals will always be better then regen heals that take time to cast.