I am returning back to EQII and I had played with a fury in the past but I heard Wardens are decent and OK with melee as well.Is the warden a decent solo class and are they fairly easy to play as far as a healer goes.  I played a Shaman in WOW.

<p>All priests are decent classes to solo nowadays... i think even templars and defilers, so warden is too <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Imo wardens are easy to play as a healer too. Dont know about WoW, but if you want easy soloability and also demand in groups, pick a healer. Any class will do imo, what class you choose is a matter of personal preference. If you like the melee option, then pick warden, mystic or inquisitor.++Xan</p>

Great thanks for the input!

<cite>jesman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Great thanks for the input!</blockquote><p>INPUT!?!?   He read that off of a box of wheaties .... lol jkin</p><p>There's actually a pretty good discussion going on here about mele priests <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=409973" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=409973</a></p>

Thanks for the melee priest posting reference.As far as being an effective healer arent wardens and furies easier because their heals are quicker.  I always thought the inquistor and the like had slow heals.

<p>Clerics (Templar/Inquis) have slower heals but they are much bigger than ours per heal.  Overall, everyone kind of evens out as far as 'how much' we can heal for..the issue about it is 'how' you do it - and what style of healing you like.</p>

Ok Thanks.

Well, i threw out the "box of wheaties" on purpose... (hmm did i <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)I wanted to nudge him/her to some direction and encourage to find out info (which exists here already) rathen than reply with already X times posted knowledge.Yes, call me lazy... i am.. heh <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Fortunately, there still is some people here who do give out more info!But atleast i didnt reply with the infamous: USE DA SEARCH! *lol**edit*oh and i love warden over fury... havent played a fury too much, but the melee priest classes are for me. Espec. the fast cast times of warden and evac + teleports spells rock! I have lvl 72 melee mystic and lvl 40(iirc) melee inquisitor aswell. The things i miss with both of em is mobility and fast cast heals... go figure? ++Xan

someone needs to sticky this question cause it gets asked all the timeShould I choose Warden or Fury?Who does more dps Warden or Fury?Who does better heals Warden of Fury?Who would win in a fight Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee if Chuck was dressed as a Warden and Bruce dressed like a Fury?This type of question does get old....maybe like a Warden vs Fury FAQ or something/gets off his soapbox

The trouble is..there are no real FGA (frequently given answers) to match the FAQ....the answers to these questions are really subjective, and are more opinions than answers, IMO.

Your opinion about opinions. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />  As someone who has played both multiple times, can never make my mind up, I do think that a vague answer to all three questions can be given.  DPS and Healing can be answered with some basic numbers.  Of course a lot goes into figuring out DPS, but a general answer can be given.Why do fury's get Bruce Lee?EDIT:  Of course that's just my opinion <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

because we all know Chuck Norris can kick Bruce Lee's [Removed for Content]therefore Warden > Fury

<p>The major differences I see between Wardens and Furies are:</p><p>1. Furies have more dps2. Wardens have more cures3. Wardens get uber SoW4. Wardens get better roots5. Furies get some nice AOE, Wardens get like 1 encounter AOE, and the rest are AA or racial.</p><p>Soloing on my Warden takes a long time, but I've heard the same complaint from Furies. I like my Warden just because she seems to be stronger overall in the healing/curing department than a Fury, but I also rolled a Warden to do just that, heal. I generally will parse up within the top 3 healers on raids. The death prevention stuff is a big boon to raiding too.</p><p>If you're going to solo/duo you may want to consider a Fury just because they seem to output more damage than Wardens. (Granted, I've never played a Fury, but my duo partner of 3 years does and when comparing eachother's healing/dps and abilities, she generally is stronger in the dps and my Warden is stronger in the heals).</p>

<p>Well, see..? This is the subjective part.  I never thought soloing took 'a long time'.  But then I rolled a Warlock.  I definitely kill things faster as a Warlock, but I don't have even one heal, or much in the way of fun utility.  I have a swash who can kill things faster than a Warden, but no heals there, either.</p><p>I have a Defiler, and can rip through content on my Warden comparatively.  I played a Fury to about 35, and definitely preferred Warden - but there's that subjective opinion again.</p><p>It just depends on what your perspective is!   That's why it'd be hard to have a definitive Q & A stickied.</p>

As far as solo speed a lot goes into it.  Simple truth is with any class you solo faster as you have more experience in the game.  You just learn to stream line your playing.  I've played a different Warden then my current one, a Warlock, a Mystic, and a conjuror all to 50+.  Most I dropped before level cap raises thus no 80's for me. Most my classes including my Warden from the year the game was released all leveled decently but were not soloed.  In the old day's soloing was slower then grouping plus I prefer to group.  I quit the game about 6 months ago do to the famous "Application ran out of memory" error.  I was getting it about 5 times an hour when I was playing my level 59 Mystic.  It's bad to crash when you are solo healing a group!  Now that SOE has sorta fixed the error I've come back to the game.  I only get one crash a day so it's playable. After 4 years of EQ2 I find leveling quick.  I still prefer group play but after 6 months off I find Crushbone to be a dead server below lvl 40.  I can go an entire day LFG and not find a group.  So I'm forced to solo.  I've been soloing and deleting 5 characters lately why I decided on my new main, my Warden now.  I've always thought and still do that Healers are the easiest to solo (that's just my play style).  I hate solo, I prefer interaction with others, but if I have to solo I prefer healers. Personally I think my Mystic Soloed easier then my Warden, but I didn't want to play another mystic to 60.  I think the warden is a great solo class.  Being able to heal, evac, port (to speed up questing), and do decent Melee dmg makes it a great solo class.  With quest rewards it's fast and easy to solo any class now.  Sadly my old guild is all PvP now so I just need to find another guild to join so I can spend more time healing and less time hitting stuff on the head! I guess lady Nightshade was correct, it's all opinion.

<cite>Arielle Nightshade wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Well, see..? This is the subjective part.  I never thought soloing took 'a long time'.  But then I rolled a Warlock.  I definitely kill things faster as a Warlock, but I don't have even one heal, or much in the way of fun utility.  I have a swash who can kill things faster than a Warden, but no heals there, either.</p><p>I have a Defiler, and can rip through content on my Warden comparatively.  I played a Fury to about 35, and definitely preferred Warden - but there's that subjective opinion again.</p><p>It just depends on what your perspective is!   That's why it'd be hard to have a definitive Q & A stickied.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, it's completely subjective...personally, I found trying to solo my Warden to be awfully painful past 60...but I still prefer my Warden over a Defiler I once had (pre LU 13, my Warden is also pre LU 13 but I stuck with her over the Defiler, man...back in the day we were <b>UBAR</b>) and whatever other healer I've rolled up and deleted. I found the solo part of Wardens past 60 to be so slow I ended up boxing her instead.</p><p>My Brigand has got to be the bestestes to solo with <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>As a tank, I prefer Wardens and Defilers for healers at this point if it's going to be tough. I only prefer Wardens over Furies as a tank I think becuase I know what they do very intimately. I still love my duo partner's Fury to death, but she's gotten hooked on Defilers and Swashies lately. On raids, I would almost always put a Warden in the MT group over a Fury, but the cures are the key there.</p><p>Honestly though, your best bet when picking a class over another is try to play both of them past 20 at least to get a feel for them. I would recommend playing them up to 50 before deciding completely, but that's not always feasable for everyone.</p>

Melee warden has a it a bit easier then a caster warden...no inturrpts in casting...well only only with heals.   Wardens are decent solers, i say decent cuase even though we can kill  some hard stuff... it takes forever to do it.  I joked with a templer friend of mine, he always complained when he dpsed he watched grass grow, but with AA's and such he does pretty well now.  So i joked the other day as it took my warden, coercer duo 45 mins to kill 25 mobs for a quest.  So i told him at least he doesnt watch the grass go through evolution... ;p Warden are great in grps and can survive a lot, Furies have way better dps and can handle soloing and grping but its not as "easy." Raids furies are wanted, Wardens are being questioned on whether or not there needed at all. Hope that helps

<cite>iceriven2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Melee warden has a it a bit easier then a caster warden...no inturrpts in casting...well only only with heals.   Wardens are decent solers, i say decent cuase even though we can kill  some hard stuff... it takes forever to do it.  I joked with a templer friend of mine, he always complained when he dpsed he watched grass grow, but with AA's and such he does pretty well now.  So i joked the other day as it took my warden, coercer duo 45 mins to kill 25 mobs for a quest.  So i told him at least he doesnt watch the grass go through evolution... ;pWarden are great in grps and can survive a lot, Furies have way better dps and can handle soloing and grping but its not as "easy."Raids furies are wanted, Wardens are being questioned on whether or not there needed at all.Hope that helps</blockquote><p>Nicely said, Ice...  Also, I think we are finding that the questioning of a Warden's raid usefulness is being questioned recently (double...negative? something ..)   Meaning that our sheer ability to put out some HPS is being re-evaluated by some guilds.  I suppose when Veeshan's Peak is on Farm status, we'll go back to sitting, but right now I guess they want healing <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

I know wiggly fingers and poison pushers have a thing for the Fury's int buffs in raids, therefore Fury's get more lovin' there.  I wish it wasn't so but that has just been my experience.  I <i>love</i> my warden though.  For a good melee warden make sure you have lots of STR gear to make you hit harder.

<p>Bah, people are fools if they're reconsidering the usefulness of Wardens on raids IMO. Warden FTW <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I <u>usually</u> out parse any Fury on raids (on the heal parse). Furies just don't have the curing capabilities of a Warden and that's key for a lot of named fights.</p><p>I skipped the melee warden setup, I spec'd mostly for group support rather than solo play. I have thought about trying the melee Warden thing. I went caster Warden pretty much and yeah things are really slow, but you can solo heroics and such, just takes forever. I basically played my Warden as a mage when soloing and did quite well, if you pump AA into your roots you can solo as a casting Warden quite effectively. The only problem I've seen doing the casting Warden is your wolf pack thingie is kind of useless because a rooted mob is going to go after the closest hostile if it can't go after it's main aggro target. So basically your wolves don't last too long <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

<p>Bah, I knew my double negative was going to get me in trouble <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  What I meant was:  T7 raiding when everyone had every zone on farm status pretty much, were min/maxing to get through it as fast as possible - Wardens sat a lot in favor of others with more buffs, hate transfer, etc.</p><p>Now that people are opening up the new Tier 8 content (well, except for those guilds with Devs on them...but that's a whole nother story), they are finding it sufficiently difficult  and guilds are in need of our healing.  So we don't sit.  For now.</p>

I do fail at reading comprehension sometimes too tho <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

AA mirror FTW!  I switch back and forth depending on the situation.  My two set-ups are one for soloing (melee) and one for grps/raids (heals).

If somone was to make a Warden FAQ, and FA. I would say things like this need to be asked: How do wardens Heal? What sort of Offensive Capabilities to they have? What Kind of Melee do they offer? What kind of defensive spells do they bring? Same set for Fury also, im sure a few more could be added but those spring to mind of possible quesitons.

<cite>Arielle Nightshade wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Bah, I knew my double negative was going to get me in trouble <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" />  What I meant was:  T7 raiding when everyone had every zone on farm status pretty much, were min/maxing to get through it as fast as possible - Wardens sat a lot in favor of others with more buffs, hate transfer, etc.</p><p>Now that people are opening up the new Tier 8 content (well, except for those guilds with Devs on them...but that's a whole nother story), they are finding it sufficiently difficult  and guilds are in need of our healing.  So we don't sit.  For now.</p></blockquote>I've never been a raider, but I'm currious about raiding a bit. Who do they use to keep off tank groups up? Or do they even bother sticking healers in the off tank groups? I would think that wardens with our excellent group healing would be natural choices for melee DPS groups if not the MT/OT group?

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've never been a raider, but I'm currious about raiding a bit. Who do they use to keep off tank groups up? Or do they even bother sticking healers in the off tank groups? I would think that wardens with our excellent group healing would be natural choices for melee DPS groups if not the MT/OT group?</blockquote><p>Often it's MT group:  Defiler, Templar, Warden   OT group:  Shaman, Cleric (type depends on who's available)  - Furys in both the caster DPS group (for the INT buff) and also in the scout-ish melee group (again, INT buff and the help with poison procs and any spell damage).</p><p>So..7 healers.  If they found need for 8 healers, Warden would go in the OT group, making it a kind of 2nd MT group in case the MT died.   I think that even though we don't bring the INT buff to the caster group, we keep them alive a bit better.  One could seriously argue that since you can't do much DPS while Dead..the INT buff isn't as important as heals.</p><p>But...they never argue that.../sigh.</p>

<cite>Arielle Nightshade wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've never been a raider, but I'm currious about raiding a bit. Who do they use to keep off tank groups up? Or do they even bother sticking healers in the off tank groups? I would think that wardens with our excellent group healing would be natural choices for melee DPS groups if not the MT/OT group?</blockquote><p>Often it's MT group:  Defiler, Templar, Warden   OT group:  Shaman, Cleric (type depends on who's available)  - Furys in both the caster DPS group (for the INT buff) and also in the scout-ish melee group (again, INT buff and the help with poison procs and any spell damage).</p><p>So..7 healers.  If they found need for 8 healers, Warden would go in the OT group, making it a kind of 2nd MT group in case the MT died.   I think that even though we don't bring the INT buff to the caster group, we keep them alive a bit better.  One could seriously argue that since you can't do much DPS while Dead..the INT buff isn't as important as heals.</p><p>But...they never argue that.../sigh.</p></blockquote><p>I'd think the better argument for the int group would be: how much is that extra int helping?</p><p>I mean, seriously arn't the mages so far above the soft cap that the extra wis is helping their resists far more than the extra int is helping their DPS? Not to mention superior warden group healing. The extra int for scouts make sense though, since they generally arn't up to the soft cap.</p><p>That's just my opinion though. Maybe dead mages help the moral of the raid?</p>

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>That's just my opinion though. Maybe dead mages help the moral of the raid?</p></blockquote>They do if they're gnomes.

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I mean, seriously arn't the mages so far above the soft cap that the extra wis is helping their resists far more than the extra int is helping their DPS? Not to mention superior warden group healing. The extra int for scouts make sense though, since they generally arn't up to the soft cap.</p><p>That's just my opinion though. Maybe dead mages help the moral of the raid?</p></blockquote>Furys have hibernation which makes them better group healers than a warden. They will keep a mage dps group up fine, but even so it is a bit iffy whether they bring more to a mage group buffwise than a templar.  A fury is certainly not optimal for a melee dps group, esepcially when you see what an inquisitor or mystic bring to the table. Druids of both classes will find themselves increasingly marginalized once content is on farm status. Furys however have dps to fall back on. Wardens will just sit.

<p>I have to disagree on the above comment that Hibernation makes a Fury a better group healer.  Group healing is the Wardens "thing"..   Between stackable group HoT's as well as Grove, we also have our level 80 specialty heal which is again.. a group heal.  </p>