The Templar's Guide to The Excorcist Tree

[Kriptini]

<p><span style="font-size: xx-large;">First of all, this tree does NOT "suck".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Many people argue that the Excorcist Tree on the Cleric achievment advancement is just bad. Well, I'll tell you, that if you actually try it out, you may find it to be more helpful than the other trees. I'll just take a quick moment of your time to explain the tree.</span></p><p>1. Exorcists' Wisdom</p><p><i>Increases the Exorcist's wisdom by 4 for each rank.</i></p><p>If you're a Templar, you should already be liking this. As we know, our heals can take up a lot of power, and we can't always be saved by a Manastone or Conjurer/Necromancer item. Wisdom will increase our power so we can heal/attack more, and it also improves our resists to help us avoid those stuns and stifles we hate so much. Not too much else to say about this, but it's definatly worth having.</p><p>2. Turn Undead</p><p><i>Inflicts tremendous damage on undead creatures that cannot be outright resisted.</i></p><p>Yup, it says TREMENDOUS damage. Here's some pro's to this spell:</p><p>-TREMENDOUS damage</p><p>-Hits all undead in the target encounter</p><p>-Cannot be resisted</p><p>-Fast recast (for a TREMENDOUS damage spell)</p><p>-Gains in potency as you gain INT</p><p>Here's the con:</p><p>-Costs a lot of power</p><p>The good news? You invested into Exorcist's Wisdom, so it really doesn't matter how much power it uses. Besides, if your job in the group or raid is to heal, you more than likely won't be clicking it anyway. Still, an awesome spell, even if it does only affect undead type creatures.</p><p>Which reminds me... aren't <b>at least 40% of all the mobs in Everquest 2 at least some type of Undead creature?</b></p><p>I'm not kidding... from Stormhold to the Crypt of Agony; you're fighting Undead. So why not embrace that fact by investing in this?</p><p>3. Blessed Arament</p><p><i>Imbues the Exorcist's weapons with a chance to cleanse the undead with divine damage.</i></p><p>This thing is so-so at lower levels, but past Rank 5, it gets freakin' UBER!</p><p>Not only is the proc rediculously high, but it also does damage proportional to your Strength... and I'm sure every Templar has invested in the Bishop line.</p><p>Also, aren't you doing a lot of auto-attacking when you're the main healer? It would make sense, seeing as you'd be conserving power for heals. (Not that you need to conserve power down this line...)</p><p>4. Excorcise</p><p><i>Increases all of the Excorcist's casting spells.</i></p><p>I don't know a compitent Templar alive who would pass up on extra Ministration. Not only does that beef up your heals, but it also provides Disruption for damage, Subjugation for more hits, and Ordination for more... buffy... type... things...</p><p>5. Protection from Undead</p><p><i>Provides the Excorcist's group with limited immunity from undead creatures. Any damage in excess of 50% of an ally's health is not prevented.</i></p><p>HOLY COW. This spell is freakin' uber. It takes very little power to cast, has a pretty fast cast time, and lasts 16 seconds... which means 16 seconds of not having to worry about who has aggro.</p><p>Have you ever wanted to solo a ^^^ that's the same level as you? Well now you can! When I was level 52, I was owning those heroic spectres in the Sinking Sands... thanks to this spell and the other ones from the Excorcist line.</p><p>Remember in the Estate of Unrest, you'd pull a shard of Garanel, without realising that you also pulled a fragment of Garanel and Garnel's Shade is sneaking up behind you, so your friends frantically AoE without realising they just pulled another mob or two? Now, try to think of how it would be different if you had Protection from Undead. =D</p><p>In conclusion, the Excorcist line can be very important to a Templar's adventuring career. All of those benefits outweigh any possible risks, which makes me wonder why people knocked it down in the first place. Even so, this achievment line certainly isn't mandatory; none of them are. But if nothing else...</p><p>EXCORCIST IS A FREAKIN' SWEET TITLE!</p>

[Enoa]

<cite>Kriptini@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Which reminds me... aren't <b>at least 40% of all the mobs in Everquest 2 at least some type of Undead creature?</b></p></blockquote><p>I think I'll take an abillity that is uber for 100% of encounters thank you.   INT/STA/AGI.</p><p>I had WIZ when i was running unrest and cov all the time and it was okay, before I discovered AGI line.  I did respec (before ROK) for a FTH and MMIS run back to WIZ and though it increased my zone wide dps it wasn't by as much as I thought.  </p><p>The AE nuke is nice but I feel it has a slow cast time (unless they've changed it) and slow recast timer.. so /meh.   </p><p>40% if a bit high for the % of undead encounters... but even if it is accurate I'll take spell crit/ mellee crit or double attack offered by the other lines to improve my dps on 100% of encounters.  </p><p>My Wiz is way past the soft cap and at times at the hard cap (in raids) so the Wiz offered by the Wiz line adds nothing. </p><p>Exorcist is the best title. </p><p>Enoa</p>

[quasigenx]

It doesn't suck, it's just worse than every other AA line. I can't even justify it in my alternate AA build.

[Leiv]

Thanks for post... I've been thinking about writing something similar. My current spec is completely cast-oriented, ie I have discarded the idea to spec for melee. This means I've gone down INT for cast speed and spell crits, STR for the interrupt protection and max health, and <i>WIS for the casting skills</i>. Further all my gear is set up for maxing INT, WIS and cast-related things (spell damage, heal quantity, spell/heal crits...). I don't think most templars realize how great difference WIS4 does. I've maxed WIS4, and I'm not seeing a single resist in RoK even on yellow-con mobs anymore. This is important since it means I can be more or less certain to get all the lotto-heal debuffs and mitigation debuffs in on first cast, which means I can spend more time either casting nukes or heals. As a rehash, WIS4 increases disruption (chance to hit with a nuke), subjugation (chance to hit with a control spell), ordination (chance to hit with a debuff) and ministration (power cost reduction on heals). Each point in WIS4 is almost equivalent of one caster level. With 8 points in WIS4 you will have cast skills as with an about six levels higher caster, which of course does wonders for mitigating resists. Of course you can discuss if, in the end, the heal crits in STA will input more healing over time. However, I'm very happy about not getting resists both in group and solo.

[Kriptini]

<cite>quasigenx wrote:</cite><blockquote>It doesn't suck, it's just worse than every other AA line. I can't even justify it in my alternate AA build.</blockquote><p>It's not even worse than every other AA line. Heck, in most cases, it's better than STR or STA. Unlike those other trees, WIS contains more "instant" effects than passive. And even though the last ability in STR is nice, it can't protect your group like the WIS tree can.</p><p>If you wanna try to justify it, use this: Heal Crit means nothing if you can't heal for beans.</p>

[Bodracoran]

I keep the wis line in my magic mirror for when I know I will be fighting undead...

[Kizee]

If I am going to use a dps build then I would rather it be useful on everything rather than be pigeon holed into 1 type of mob.

[Jevangal]

The only thing I would add is this:Two words - diminishing returns.  Once your wisdom reaches a certain level, each wisdom point is worth less power. Additionally, I can't see a better combination for raiding than INT/STA/AGI.  If you like to hit CoA, CoV, Unrest and Castle Mistmoore, maybe the WIS line will be of more use.  But I abandoned it and went for something more universally useful.

[Andykat]

... I'm not sure how much I can trust this opinion from someone who can't spell "exorcist" or "exorcism"... =PAnd as far as I'm aware, Ministration doesn't actually do much for healing values.

[Banditman]

I don't think Ministration helps your heal values at all.  I believe it decreases the power cost of healing spells.I could be wrong, but I think that's what I remember.

[Andykat]

I was under the impression that this had been disproven.

[Banditman]

Easy way to test:Find an Illusionist friend, group up.  Have the Illusionist pop Flash of Brilliance.  This gives you a short duration bonus to your casting skills, like +75 or so.  Right click inspect a couple heals to get the inspect boxes up before the buff expires.Once the buff expires, re-inspect the heals to see the difference.As I said, I could be mistaken, I simply remember it as being a power cost thing.

[Kendricke]

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Easy way to test:Find an Illusionist friend, group up.  Have the Illusionist pop Flash of Brilliance.  This gives you a short duration bonus to your casting skills, like +75 or so.  Right click inspect a couple heals to get the inspect boxes up before the buff expires.Once the buff expires, re-inspect the heals to see the difference.As I said, I could be mistaken, I simply remember it as being a power cost thing.</blockquote><p>Even faster way to test: cast Yaulp.  Yaulp reduces Ministration by 36.  You'll find that Ministration does not increase heal amounts at all.  It does, however, decrease power cost on heal spells.</p>

[Noaani]

<p>So, I decided to have another look at this line to see what it was like... here is what I found. </p><blockquote>1. Exorcists' Wisdom <p><i>Increases the Exorcist's wisdom by 4 for each rank.</i></p><p>If you're a Templar, you should already be liking this. As we know, our heals can take up a lot of power, and we can't always be saved by a Manastone or Conjurer/Necromancer item. Wisdom will increase our power so we can heal/attack more, and it also improves our resists to help us avoid those stuns and stifles we hate so much. Not too much else to say about this, but it's definatly worth having. </p></blockquote><p>Putting 4 points into this ability, my power went from 8220 all the way to 8249... 29 points of power, woot!</p><p>No one in their right mind would consider putting more than 4 points into this ability, so i didn't bother checking to see what another 4 points in it would do.</p><blockquote><p>2. Turn Undead</p><p><i>Inflicts tremendous damage on undead creatures that cannot be outright resisted.</i></p><p>Yup, it says TREMENDOUS damage. Here's some pro's to this spell:</p><p>-TREMENDOUS damage</p><p>-Hits all undead in the target encounter</p><p>-Cannot be resisted</p><p>-Fast recast (for a TREMENDOUS damage spell)</p><p>-Gains in potency as you gain INT</p><p>Here's the con:</p><p>-Costs a lot of power</p><p>The good news? You invested into Exorcist's Wisdom, so it really doesn't matter how much power it uses. Besides, if your job in the group or raid is to heal, you more than likely won't be clicking it anyway. Still, an awesome spell, even if it does only affect undead type creatures.</p><p>Which reminds me... aren't <b>at least 40% of all the mobs in Everquest 2 at least some type of Undead creature?</b></p><p>I'm not kidding... from Stormhold to the Crypt of Agony; you're fighting Undead. So why not embrace that fact by investing in this?</p></blockquote><p>I am having trouble finding much in the way of undead in T8.There are a few random mobs throughout the place, and a few specific cases of them together, but there are not that many all up. There are more undead leveling up in the old world, with SH, RoV, Nek castle, FG as well as some overland zones, a few in DoF, but hardly any after that.</p><p>While this is high damage for a templar, it is not that high over all. In a group situation, casting this spell would not even register to other group members, at least not in T8, it may well be better in lower teirs.</p><p>Lastly, the power cost of this spell is outragous. Saying a templar that has spec'd down this line does not need to conserve power is outright false (see my comments above), so the power cost of this is a major issue.</p><blockquote><p>3. Blessed Arament</p><p><i>Imbues the Exorcist's weapons with a chance to cleanse the undead with divine damage.</i></p><p>This thing is so-so at lower levels, but past Rank 5, it gets freakin' UBER!</p><p>Not only is the proc rediculously high, but it also does damage proportional to your Strength... and I'm sure every Templar has invested in the Bishop line.</p><p>Also, aren't you doing a lot of auto-attacking when you're the main healer? It would make sense, seeing as you'd be conserving power for heals. (Not that you need to conserve power down this line...)</p></blockquote><p>All healers should be auto attacking, all the time, unless the mob has a ranged based AE. Simple fact. This ability is 'good' against undead mobs. ~350 extra damage per swing is nice, but hardly worth the points it has taken to get to this point.</p><blockquote><p>4. Excorcise</p><p><i>Increases all of the Excorcist's casting spells.</i></p><p>I don't know a compitent Templar alive who would pass up on extra Ministration. Not only does that beef up your heals, but it also provides Disruption for damage, Subjugation for more hits, and Ordination for more... buffy... type... things...</p></blockquote><p>The only redeeming thing about this ability is the fact that it lowers the power cost of heal spells (Ministration lowers power costof heals, ordernation lowers the power cost of buffs, disruption effects the hit rate of damage spells, and subjigation effects the hit rate of control spells). </p><p>Maxing out this ability, the power cost of Vital Intercession went from 214 all the way down to 198... thats it, 8 AAs for a total of 16 power saved.</p><p>Woot!</p><blockquote><p>5. Protection from Undead</p><p><i>Provides the Excorcist's group with limited immunity from undead creatures. Any damage in excess of 50% of an ally's health is not prevented.</i></p><p>HOLY COW. This spell is freakin' uber. It takes very little power to cast, has a pretty fast cast time, and lasts 16 seconds... which means 16 seconds of not having to worry about who has aggro.</p><p>Have you ever wanted to solo a ^^^ that's the same level as you? Well now you can! When I was level 52, I was owning those heroic spectres in the Sinking Sands... thanks to this spell and the other ones from the Excorcist line.</p><p>Remember in the Estate of Unrest, you'd pull a shard of Garanel, without realising that you also pulled a fragment of Garanel and Garnel's Shade is sneaking up behind you, so your friends frantically AoE without realising they just pulled another mob or two? Now, try to think of how it would be different if you had Protection from Undead. =D</p><p>In conclusion, the Excorcist line can be very important to a Templar's adventuring career. All of those benefits outweigh any possible risks, which makes me wonder why people knocked it down in the first place. Even so, this achievment line certainly isn't mandatory; none of them are. But if nothing else...</p><p>EXCORCIST IS A FREAKIN' SWEET TITLE! </p></blockquote><p>Again, this is such a situational buff that it is not really worth the points.</p><p>When you do happen to be fighting undead, its maybe worth having. However, you have to remember that every fight in which you are NOT fighting undead, you have a minumum of 24 points spent in order to get the one and only actual useful ability in this line.</p><p>This particular line has 2 real uses. People that want to level up outside of Faydwer would find it useful until about level 55, it would be useful as a secondary AA spec to switch to when you are going to an undead heavy area (Unrest, CoA, etc).</p><p>Other than for these 2 uses, the points you would spend in this line are far better off spent elsewhere.</p>