Mystic and Warden as melee

[shockofimpact]

Which of the two has the better tools to perform as a melee priest?  I know they both can spec into Melee with their AAs but which is more capable?

[Banditman]

The one with the better player at the keyboard.

[Tehom]

It's kind of hard to say, really. It's such a niche thing that you usually don't see straight comparisons, and it's pretty gear dependent. Generally speaking I tend to think wardens may have a slight edge over mystics, but I'd imagine inquisitors would be better than either. But it's not like you'll be impressing real dps classes either way.

[Edith]

Interestingly, I don't find much difference between inquisitor and mystic, dps-wise, though occasionally  with multiple mobs the mystic wishes for Steadfast.

[shockofimpact]

Well, I am just thinking on lvling....I think it would be easier to lvl a melee based healer than a brigand or swashie just because of the heals and what not. 

[Edith]

Easier than a rogue?  Not really.  Heals are dandy and all but rogues get to essentially stun-lock mobs while they beat the tar out of them and their dps potential is much higher then that of a healer.  That is, a swashy may get invited to a group as dps but a healer will be invited to heal.

All the classes you've mentioned are easy to level.  I'd say you need to decide what role you want to play and which "flavor" appeals to you the most.

[woolf2k]

Mystic

[Animul]

Warden

[StaticLex]

I have both a mystic and a warden actually.  I like the layout of the warden AAs much better when it comes to speccing for melee.  The mystic melee goodies are largely mixed in with healer-ish stuff and that kinda irritates me.

[Bosock]

I too have a mystic and Warden...thinking about rerolling warden for a inq.  They are both good soloers and like mentioned above the wardens ports and run speed helps him get around.  However, with new mounts and guild hall excessability to portals and such minimizes the wardens benefits here.

Mystic is far tougher with their buffs, chain armor, and wards.  If you know what your doing with a mystic then you will seldom come off green when soloing.  Their damage is pretty decent for a healer as well.  This makes for a rugged little soloer that can do relatively high content.  However, if you do not pay attention and stay up on the mystic, he isnt as good at rebound healing as the warden...wardens faster casts and such works well when you get behind on heals.  Mystic has some nice mit buffs as well.

You can be a little more sloppy with a warden and still do well...good ability to catch up heal when you get behind as they are fast casters.  The damage is a little less than a mystic, but still good for a priest...believe the inq has about the best damage other than a fury. 

Either class solo's well.  I do not know why i am rerolling my warden for a inq...just change of pace.  My mystic is higher level so i usually experience new content with him...probably reroll the mystic if the warden was higher.  Both are good clasess i think you would enjoy. 

[Mcwa]

Coming back again and with the SF changes I am having trouble picking between Mystic or Warden myself.  I have played a Mystic to 58 awhile back as a battle cleric and loved it.  With the changes now and looking to start over for leveling purposes I think the Warden is much better off now as melee.  I liked Mystics more before because of 100% melee crit and they buffed there primary stat of Strength.  With everything based off wisdom now thats a big plus to a Warden since they buff wisdom.  Wardens also get a buff to there auto attack damage now which I am hearing gives a nice dps boost.  End game the SF changes seem to even out for a Mystic but for leveling they took a beating with the AA changes. 

 I would really like some more input on this if anyone has anything to add.  I like playing the underdog classes like bards, chanters and shammy's but cant understand why they hammered a shammy's dps output at lower levels removing 100% melee crit and replacing it with 17%.  Sure with high end gear its easy to get crit bonus but thats not available till well down leveling road. 

[Odys]

Mcward@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Coming back again and with the SF changes I am having trouble picking between Mystic or Warden myself.  I have played a Mystic to 58 awhile back as a battle cleric and loved it.  With the changes now and looking to start over for leveling purposes I think the Warden is much better off now as melee.  I liked Mystics more before because of 100% melee crit and they buffed there primary stat of Strength.  With everything based off wisdom now thats a big plus to a Warden since they buff wisdom.  Wardens also get a buff to there auto attack damage now which I am hearing gives a nice dps boost.  End game the SF changes seem to even out for a Mystic but for leveling they took a beating with the AA changes. 

 I would really like some more input on this if anyone has anything to add.  I like playing the underdog classes like bards, chanters and shammy's but cant understand why they hammered a shammy's dps output at lower levels removing 100% melee crit and replacing it with 17%.  Sure with high end gear its easy to get crit bonus but thats not available till well down leveling road. 

Very true, before SF my mystic was soloing better, now it's no so clear.

BUT her ward proc a 900 dmg shield which is more than enough to make her better than the warden.

I still prefer the warden because she does not need to be cautious, nature walk is a dream to quest (even if it has zero impact on heroic or raid content), add evac and very good channeling and you get a character more fun to play solo.

[Odys]

After new testing with both i find that the warden is faster with higher dps.

The mystic lost the advantage of being stronger and 100% melee crit.

The mystic battle buf do proc  when she gets hit, while the warden trigger her haste on start.

With full offensive shadow AAs it seems also that the warden CA are stronger.

The frost offensive position seems also better.

[Mcwa]

Thanks for the info, I am gonna level both myself too from scratch starting with the Warden just beacuase I really like the gameplay of a battle cleric.  

[Oakum]

I am not sure which is better since people are still lvling and getting gear for 90.

Now if you were asking which one is supposed to be better, its obviously the druid since that is a druids second side where as a cleric and shaman's second side is temp buffs/debuffs.

Of course it wasnt the way it should have been last expansion and like I said, I have to see if it has changed any. Personally, meleeing is fun on the warden, but we do wear leather even with the self mit buff, we will always take more damage then a chain or plate healer. Part of the trade off for being able to do more damage, lol. Of course the ring from drueshk does help me with taking damage from groups of green mobs in the hole when i box my alts there. 

[Laylle]

Edith@Lucan DLere wrote:

Easier than a rogue?  Not really.  Heals are dandy and all but rogues get to essentially stun-lock mobs while they beat the tar out of them and their dps potential is much higher then that of a healer.  That is, a swashy may get invited to a group as dps but a healer will be invited to heal.

All the classes you've mentioned are easy to level.  I'd say you need to decide what role you want to play and which "flavor" appeals to you the most.

I'd easily say Warden for leveling. Warden has equal or better mit (mine sits at 53.5% atm), does a truckload of damage with a good 2 hander, has a ton of double attack. While I primary play my warden as a healer now, leveling her was all about DPS. She even had a full set of shard leather DPS gear waiting for her to hit 80.

Leveling my swashy on the other hand, cooldowns required me to alternate between 'stun lock' and 'dps only' attacks unless I wanted to sit around waiting for my cooldowns. Warden just had to toss out a small heal after 3-4 fights and keep trucking along.

DPS potential of the swash didn't rise above my warden until well after hitting max level.

[Hene]

Oakum wrote:

I am not sure which is better since people are still lvling and getting gear for 90.

Now if you were asking which one is supposed to be better, its obviously the druid since that is a druids second side where as a cleric and shaman's second side is temp buffs/debuffs.

Of course it wasnt the way it should have been last expansion and like I said, I have to see if it has changed any. Personally, meleeing is fun on the warden, but we do wear leather even with the self mit buff, we will always take more damage then a chain or plate healer. Part of the trade off for being able to do more damage, lol. Of course the ring from drueshk does help me with taking damage from groups of green mobs in the hole when i box my alts there. 

The entire point to being a mystic is to have utility (buffs, debuffs, and DPS) on top of healing, that other classes don't (save for inquisies).  I would say hands down that mystics have been traditionally higher melee DPS, and will likely continue to be that way, than wardens.

In TSO I raided casually and would heal the MT group fine while hitting 5-8k on every single trash parse.  Only seen 1 warden that could outparse my mystic and he was avatar geared also with a nice array of dps gear.

In SF, I haven't done a whole lot yet, but even making my way from 80 to the mid 80s I've been outparsing half the people in my groups, and solohealing at the same time.

Overall, druids are supposed to have ridiculous overheal capabilities, both ST and AE.  This with some nice new buffs set them apart from mystics who have efficient but low power heals and some buffs with a specialty in melee dps.

[Odys]

Hene wrote:

  I would say hands down that mystics have been traditionally higher melee DPS, and will likely continue to be that way, than wardens.

In TSO I raided casually and would heal the MT group fine while hitting 5-8k on every single trash parse.  Only seen 1 warden that could outparse my mystic and he was avatar geared also with a nice array of dps gear.

In SF, I haven't done a whole lot yet, but even making my way from 80 to the mid 80s I've been outparsing half the people in my groups, and solohealing at the same time.

Overall, druids are supposed to have ridiculous overheal capabilities, both ST and AE.  This with some nice new buffs set them apart from mystics who have efficient but low power heals and some buffs with a specialty in melee dps.

In TSO time healer melee dps was induced by str, giving a clear advantage to mystic, moreover at that time mystic were getting 100% crit on melee, even wearing healing gear.

Outparsing scout or any class does not mean anything, you need to compare people with the same number of AAs and equipment. I do outparse level  90 newbies. h of the fig

Dps number means nothing, it depends highly on the buf you get, the debuf applied, the length of the figth.

I can compare my mystic and my warden, they have similar equipment and full offensive aas (the warden as much more aas but it simply maens that can have a lot of healing aa even in her solo tree), and the warden solo a bit faster. Before the big change (the one which allowed to to throw away my scout stuff) the mystic was a bit faster. Moreover finding good dps gear was easier (since mail dps gear is abundant) and the weapon choice was larger.ysi

I also feel a bit more confortable solo healing with the warden :

serenity and turtle shell are valuable tools

infinite mana is handy (but the mystic mythical works too)

high channeling and super fast monster heals are nice too.

double cure group is handy too.

The warden has moreover other advantage to solo quest : port, evac and nature walk.

I sligthly prefer the reactive game play of the warden over the more pro-active game play of the mystic, but both are fun.

Last our overheals shine when high healing is required, they turn then into heals.

Each time i end up grouped with a mystic, she will outparse me on trivial stuff and the opposite will happen on the difficult figth. And the same happen when my mystic group with a druid, i keep the MT alive and warded, and if a group heal is needed itś done not much before i end up casting it (except if i use ancestral channeling).

[Hene]

Odys@Storms wrote:

Hene wrote:

  I would say hands down that mystics have been traditionally higher melee DPS, and will likely continue to be that way, than wardens.

In TSO I raided casually and would heal the MT group fine while hitting 5-8k on every single trash parse.  Only seen 1 warden that could outparse my mystic and he was avatar geared also with a nice array of dps gear.

In SF, I haven't done a whole lot yet, but even making my way from 80 to the mid 80s I've been outparsing half the people in my groups, and solohealing at the same time.

Overall, druids are supposed to have ridiculous overheal capabilities, both ST and AE.  This with some nice new buffs set them apart from mystics who have efficient but low power heals and some buffs with a specialty in melee dps.

In TSO time healer melee dps was induced by str, giving a clear advantage to mystic

In TSO, wardens could wear brawler DPS gear, which was almost as good as the scout gear mystics used, only giving a slight advantage, if any to mystics

moreover at that time mystic were getting 100% crit on melee, even wearing healing gear.

This is true, but that is only a 25% bonus over what wardens had AA access to; with a bard and a few pieces of moderate DPS gear wardens could easily hit the 90% range maybe even get up to the 100% mystics had as well, so with a little bit of gear swapping there was pratcically no difference

Outparsing scout or any class does not mean anything, you need to compare people with the same number of AAs and equipment. I do outparse level  90 newbies. h of the fig

Dps number means nothing, it depends highly on the buf you get, the debuf applied, the length of the figth.

Right, generally speaking though, my mystic never gets the melee buffs over the scouts or inquisies or tanks; and I'm not even close to capped on AAs yet, sadly :/

And I'm not talking about beating people on the parse in a single fight, I'm mainly talking about ZW, though properly timed, Stampede can bump me to the top because of procs from me and my pet

I can compare my mystic and my warden, they have similar equipment and full offensive aas (the warden as much more aas but it simply maens that can have a lot of healing aa even in her solo tree), and the warden solo a bit faster. Before the big change (the one which allowed to to throw away my scout stuff) the mystic was a bit faster. Moreover finding good dps gear was easier (since mail dps gear is abundant) and the weapon choice was larger.ysi

I also feel a bit more confortable solo healing with the warden :

serenity and turtle shell are valuable tools

infinite mana is handy (but the mystic mythical works too)

high channeling and super fast monster heals are nice too.

double cure group is handy too.

The warden has moreover other advantage to solo quest : port, evac and nature walk.

I have to agree on the last part, for soloing, wardens come out on top for sure, especially with their epic or myth for power regen and their unbeatable raw healing power for non-epic fights

The only real advantage wardens have over mystics now, with regard to melee DPS, is more CAs; I find when I play my mystic that a lot of the time when I'm pure DPSing I have to wait a bit for my CAs to refresh...but I think we make up for lost DPS in this area with our Dogdog who adds a little DPS but procs Stampede and CoB etc quite well.  Both can easily get capped on DA, crit chance, both have access to a lot of weapon damage bonus, and with an illy or coercer they can be capped on atk speed or dps mod no prob.

[Tehom]

Stampede deserves special mention. It's a really strong spike ability, so it has strong synergy with Victorious Concerto.

[Hene]

however, VC can do things Stampede can only dream of doing

[woolf2k]

Mystic, 'nuff said!

[Oakum]

Edith@Lucan DLere wrote:

Interestingly, I don't find much difference between inquisitor and mystic, dps-wise, though occasionally  with multiple mobs the mystic wishes for Steadfast.

Its funny that the heaviest armor wearing priest which would get tired first and do LESS dps then a mystic or warden is expected to do more. Sounds unbalanced to me. lol.  What's next, gaurds and zerkers outdping assasins?

[Hamervelder]

Laylle@Najena wrote:

Edith@Lucan DLere wrote:

Easier than a rogue?  Not really.  Heals are dandy and all but rogues get to essentially stun-lock mobs while they beat the tar out of them and their dps potential is much higher then that of a healer.  That is, a swashy may get invited to a group as dps but a healer will be invited to heal.

All the classes you've mentioned are easy to level.  I'd say you need to decide what role you want to play and which "flavor" appeals to you the most.

I'd easily say Warden for leveling. Warden has equal or better mit (mine sits at 53.5% atm), does a truckload of damage with a good 2 hander, has a ton of double attack. While I primary play my warden as a healer now, leveling her was all about DPS. She even had a full set of shard leather DPS gear waiting for her to hit 80.

Leveling my swashy on the other hand, cooldowns required me to alternate between 'stun lock' and 'dps only' attacks unless I wanted to sit around waiting for my cooldowns. Warden just had to toss out a small heal after 3-4 fights and keep trucking along.

DPS potential of the swash didn't rise above my warden until well after hitting max level.

I have to agree with you; wardens are hands-down better for soloing than swashbucklers.  I have one of both above level 80.  The warden is 90, and the swashbuckler is 83.  Sure, my swashbuckler can stun-lock mobs, but my warden doesn't need to do so.  The warden can easily crank out 10-12k dps in full offensive stance, and with the combination of the STR line and Spores (that's a reactive healing proc, for those that may not play wardens) I really don't need to heal myself. 

The warden can walk up to pretty much any solo mob he wants, and kill it in two or three hits tops.  Heroic mobs, I have to be a bit more careful, but he's still able to destroy those with much more ease than a swashbuckler.  While swashbucklers can 'walk up and beat stuff into the dirt' so to speak with more ease than most other scouts, swashies just don't hold a candle to wardens when it comes to soloing.

[Odys]

I may try stampede with my mystic, but she only have 200aas (warden have 230). The problem with the class sf aas is that you need to burn so much aa in the cure tree that getting there means a lot of aa wasted. Only one cure aa is usefull, mostly in raids, making remove curse faster .... Indeed i hqve doubt since it seems that my warden is getting double cures now that she got her tornado and her warden version of  stampede. Effects are often wrongly translated and may be some cure aa are procing a double cure.

Note that dps wise i consider only solo or single group situations, my mystic never raided with offensive aas, she raids with full shadow healing aas + dog line + alacrity/ritual and ressurection so i cannot compare.

I quite agree with the statements above, and yes my mystic is  waiting for ca to refresh more than my warden does.

I soloed the red drake with my warden but i m not daring to do so with my mystic, but here again she has 30 aas less.

Last whenever i register for an alliance raid the mystic always get picked, and i have to argue a lot to convince the raid organiwer to take the warden. I see everyday raiding guild recruiting a shaman.

The mystic is probably better if you want to raid; the warden more fun to fool around and go for heroic content.