Good Priest choice for PvP?

[Gwynn]

<p>For a priests for PvP - should I go Inquistor? - I like the Bishop AA line which makes interruptions rare. Also Plate for survivability.</p><p>The Mystic seems prone to interruptions, and I found the Fury boring to solo - just root-and-nuke, plus the limited crowd control does make you squishy.</p><p>How do the the priests stack up? I can't imagine everybody goes Cleric - are Druids and Shamans "survivable"? Which ones are easier to level, and are they in demand at higher levels?</p><p>TIA!</p>

[Gwynn]

<p>*bump*</p><p>OK, let me rephrase:</p><p>What kind of a priest do you want in your group healing you?</p>

[Balrok]

<p>I'll bite</p><p>Solo or DPS/Heal in groups... Inquisitor/Mystic/Furypure group heals.... Templar/Defiler/Warden</p><p>It's really pretty obvious.  A defiler without 100% casting speed and non-interupt options is going to struggle solo.  But if they are in addition to another healer, group is almost unkillable.  Templar/Warden for pure solo group healing.</p>

[Arielle Nightshade]

<p>I disagree that Warden is just pure group heals in a pvp setting.   You can do some serious damage melee spec'd and solo.  If you spec melee and allocate your AA's to support it, there's no difference between you and a 'pure' spec'd healing Warden.   The only thing a Warden has to choose is whether they will melee or nuke.   Neither choice affects their ability to heal.  Both druids (Warden, Fury) sip power when they are healing, but when they start to nuke it's gone quickly</p><p>Melee is a very good choice for pvp for that reason.  Also Warden group heals are really good.  When the poo hits the fan and you don't even have time to single target for heals, a group heal covers it.</p><p>I played both a Warden and Defiler back on Venekor when it was brand new out of the box.   Of the 2, PvE Wardens just pasted into a PvP environment (which is how it worked back then..)  seem made for pvp. </p><p>With about 50 AA you have combat arts to melee, and at level 20 you get a buff called "Warden of the Forest" that gives you a self-mitigation buff that makes a Warden hard to kill in one on one or group combat situations.</p><p>In a group situation, Defiler makes your group practically impossible to kill - especially if you have 2 healers in the group, the protective wards of Defiler and then someone else that can heal quickly (like a druid) when wards are breached.   I had a dedicated group when I pvp'd on that Defiler.  I'd NEVER go anywhere solo - the enemy can't kill you, but they literally stand there and laugh at you if you try to  kill them.</p><p>Short answer:  Warden if you are solo a lot, Defiler if you group a lot and Inquis if you do a bit of both.  Inquisitors can do a ton of dps if spec'd that way - and still heal for a lot in groups.</p><p>End-game desireability:   Raids can't get enough of Inquisitors.   If they could take 20 Inquisitors, a Tank, A dirge, a mystic and a coercer, they'd do it.   That's for now.   When they 'balance' in the next GU (whenever that is..)  Who knows?</p><p>Leveling ease:  Leveling a Defiler solo is like watching paint dry.  Most shaman (shamen?)  level as Mystics who have more melee dps, then betray to Defiler if that's what they wanted to be.  Same with Templar leveling as Inquisitor then betraying.     Druids level well and quickly.</p><p>Surviveability:  Shamans and Clerics all have very good surviveability, just Defilers and Templars have a hard time killing anything quickly.    Wardens are more surviveable than Furies as far as mitigation is concerned.    All healers but Templars have abilities that let them break out of a crowd control spell (then cure their group).  Templars have Sanctuary, which is really powerful, but has to be cast before the fact to make the group immune to control spells, not break them out of it.</p>

[Xzerius]

<p>I LOVE  my Inquisitor.  It's the only healer class that I have ever actually stuck with (  and unfortunately, the last one I ever tried ) over the course of the games entire existance.  Inquis is awesome in both settings as well as being a solo'ist.</p>

[Vlahkmaak]

<p>These are my observations:</p><p>Warden or inqy if your planning on playing solo.  Both have stellar power management with the warden being near impossible to mana drain.  Multiple cures and melee spec skills too on both of them for soloing pvp/e.  Shamans suffer form longer cast times and knock backs so are harder to play but can be effective. </p><p>Furies hit harder than the other healers but can be run oom faster than any other healer imo.  Also furies seem dang near impossible to come by these days, especially good ones.  I'd kill for one atm tbh. </p><p>Templars can be effectivelly kited and power drained too but should not be underestimated.  They are healing beasts but suffer from lower damage output of all priests except defilers.  These statements don't hold true for everyone that plays these classes though as a few stellar players of each one stand out and ahve pushed the class far above others of the ilk. </p><p>I think the generalizations are fair though HOWEVER once you enter the grping pvp scene<strong> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all this changes if your grouped with a tank that taunts</span></strong>.  As a tank I prefer a shaman mixed with any plate/leather healer that can cure fast and dps (Inqy/fury preferable) but any combo of the two with a taunting tank will keep the dps alive.  The main problem stacking double heals though is you begin to loose DPS for survivability so it becomes more imperative for people to time attacks with the MA for effective dps output in large scale encounters. </p>

[Ralpmet]

<p>I haven't played in over a year and a half, but when I was leveling ralpmet after (I think? SoF) from 89-90 and was out questing, I was grouped with 2 guildies who were 2 zones away and didn't have any means of quicktravelling to catch me.</p><p>So when I got jumped by 4 level 90's, an assassin, a wizard, a warden and a zerker, I thought I was screwed. Between the myth clicky, the instant super-aa-reactive, divine shield, and my regular heals with steadfast, I sat there and outhealed all 4 of them for 3 minutes until my ranger and zerker buddies showed up and we wiped them. And it wasn't some classless group of random people, they were onyx players.</p><p>End of story, a well played inq was, probably still is since I'm assuming the pvp is still ignored on this game, the hardest healer to take down in game. Between 10 seconds of invuln, instant cast set of 12 reactive @ 1k a piece, instant cast cure self out of cc, instant cast heal+cure from clicky, and being uninteruptable, you won't regret playing an Inq.</p>

[Gwynn]

<p>Thank you all for your insights! I especially wanted to know about demand/usefulness at higher levels. I'll just go with Inquisitor, then. (I was sort of hoping for a reason to do something everybody else isn't doing, though <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> )</p><p>This is my PvE experience:</p><p>I first went with a Fury because I *really* want to play a mage/caster-type healer, and I also like the fast-casting HOTs and reacting to actual damage, rather than anticipating it. The problem soloing is that even though their roots are quite effective, tough mobs inevitably break loose before you've finished nuking them, and squash you. Plus, root-and-nuke over and over again got boring.</p><p>Shamans are the most frustrating: any attacker that's a higher level than you will keep setting back your spell-casting, making a 3-second ward twice as long to cast, while you're taking damage, often interrupting your heals all together, leaving you a dead shaman.</p><p>The only problem I've had with the Inquisitor is running out of power in tough solo fights (group healing has never taken much power for any of my priests). They can take a beating, and the bishop AA line takes care of interruptions, which makes you a very good caster. (Same with the Templar, but IIRC, buffs/debuffs were less useful soloing, and casting times were a bit longer.) </p>

[Xzerius]

<p>At higher levels, power isn't normally an issue except when PvP'ing against players using  power drains but with your power proc buff, a couple of power proc items,  the use of various clicky items like potions, mana stone and the tinkered items,  I can stand and take a beating for quite some time before power is ever an issue.</p>

[Ralpmet]

<p>I remember when I played a guy told me that Inquisitors had tons of power problems, so I took a screenshot of me in the BGs on ralp on how much healing I did in Klak with 1 power bar;</p><p><a href="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ij99e">http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ij99e</a> vvvv image below</p><p><img src="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/ij99e.jpg" width="1280" height="1024" /></p><p>That was the first game, I healed until we had 680 points and said "you guys got it from here", then "there you go", which is why the guy said "lol".</p><p>Second game</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/lftf5" target="_blank">http://www.freeimagehosting.net/lftf5</a> vvvvv image below</p><p><img src="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/lftf5.jpg" /></p><p>Was where I actually had a target to put the "power on hit" buff on, dunno what it's called, but with him proccing that buff all the time I was able to heal significantly longer. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure Ants was one of the best healers in the t8 bg's too. Someone else who played T8 would have to confirm that, but I very clearly showed him how to do the job <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I used to have tons more screenshots that I could show you where I'd be in the top damage/heals on maps like Smugglers or Ganak, but I deleted EQ2 last year and subsequently all the screenshots in the folder, those two were just ones I had saved outside of the folder for the specific purpose of uploading to forums when people were complaining about inq power loss.</p><p>I mean, yeah, pre 80 you'll have some issues in prolonged combat, but you throw up your group reactive, blow through your inq-melee spells, then throw up a couple of heals and let your autoattack power you back up and rinse and repeat. But when you get to 80 and get that fancy priest belt, life gets ultra easy.</p><p>edit:</p><p>It seems like my old posts containing the 50+ screenshots of why I was winning 9/10 gears, 9/10 smuggs, ect has been removed or deleted so I can't find them again. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /> oh well.</p><p>*Realized the screenshots were 89, and I had my myth clicky @85 so I had myth but not heal stance (? still dunno. someone has to recognize the aa buff that gives you the heal stance and see if it's on the right there.)</p>