Fury vs Warden. Which would you choose?

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Coffeeblack, Jan 2, 2013.

  1. Coffeeblack New Member

    Double XP has finally gone by and I've decided to roll a Fury and cap out its AA already.
    Discussing it with random people on my server from time to time, I feel as if it might have been the wrong decision.

    Considering betraying already but I'd like to get some feedback on what everyone thinks.

    I'm looking to get some input on which of the Druids you would choose and what are some of there major pluses and negatives in a Solo/Group/Raid aspect.
  2. Mermut Well-Known Member

    I prefer the warden.. but then I like to melee.
    Warden have more buffs for melee dps and they have a few more tricks designed for keeping a tank alive.
    Furies have more buffs for spell dps and have a few raid-wide perks.

    They're both very viable solo, group and raid, but they play very differently.
  3. Arielle Nightshade Well-Known Member

    I'm a long-time Warden, and love this class. I like it better than Fury, but I don't think your choice to roll a Fury was 'wrong', either. I've played Warden since launch, so the attachment is more sentimental than to say one druid is better than the other, cause as Jamisia said - they just play very differently.

    I know Warden better, so I'll answer that question. I can't think of any negatives of a Warden in grouping, solo or PvP. They are very strong. Anyone that is advising you 'yeah well you wear leather, you are weak!' is wrong. Warden has a self-mitigation buff that makes them well able to take a beating - and it's why it's a preferred class for PvP. (roots and sandstorm are another, as is ...some would argue...evac).

    The argument that a druid only has Heal over Time spells is also incorrect. For some reason people think that they will die if they have to depend on HoTs. Every heal a Warden has is a direct heal with a Heal over Time component tacked onto it, and if you know you have to anticipate damage rather than react to it, you are not going to have any trouble healing most things any other healer can do.

    As far as raiding is concerned - the only negative is that the class is still not a very strong buffer. We FINALLY got Instinct as a group-wide buff - as an AA choice. Instinct buffs melee skills, so that makes us a bit more useful than the last few expansions. Wardens are the only priest that gets a group death save, and with AA you get 2 triggers of it. We share Tortoise Shell with Fury (it's a druid skill), and if you combine that and some other AA abilities, you are pretty tough. The trick is knowing you have all of these abilities and having some practice using them.

    If anyone is saying you made the wrong choice - they are advising you with Flavor of the Month criteria. If you like the class, you'll be good at it. AricaJade or one of the other raiding Furies will hopefully weigh in on the discussion and can tell you more about an endgame Fury than I can. All I know is: I have both, and like the Warden better.
  4. Erszebeth Active Member

    I have both, know the warden better, but from a neutralish standpoint, they are both very strong healers in the right hands.
    One big thing that fury has over a warden is raid wide cure over time, raid wide cure tics once every 6? seconds for some odd number of tics, wardens get group cure over time, once a second for 8 seconds.
    Warden gets group death save, only other healer that has that is cleric and thats only through AA <Heroic Endline>.
    Both druids are able to do some solid heals from procs on their dps, but I personally feel that wardens have the leg up in that department.
    As for flat out heals, HoT stacking is only topped by wards, and if your good at it, you can always keep your HoTs ticking off on the group while maintaining some fair share of DPS.

    Final opinion, if your really that curious make both, play them out, decide which YOU enjoy more, and stick with that one. Both are very capable, both have 3 group cures, fury has a raid cure where warden gets group death save, both have solid DPS. No real reason to take one over the other.

    On a side note, myth buffs:
    Warden-3 hit nox/elem/arc stoneskin <requires really solid timing to be worthwhile>, power regen proc on heals/cures
    Fury-augment to another priests heals based on your last nuke, and....I forget the other part of it...

    wardens get the better end on the epic <my opinion>, but don't let it fool ya, a capable fury is nothing to scoff at.
    Zarriya likes this.
  5. Elhonna Member

    One thing furies have that wardens do not is a group ward that isn't limited to a certain damage type (if you take the AA for it). Raid cure is every second for 16 seconds. Furies have group Primal Fury now, their version of Instinct.
    From a healing standpoint, wardens blow furies away on single target healing, with two death saves, HoTs on every heal, a load of stoneskins, and great single target healing tools.
    Group healing, I'd personally say furies pull ahead, especially if specced for Protective Instinct. Charges up like the bards' Victorious Concerto. For 10 seconds, all damage you do outside of secondary ticks of DoTs are added together, after that, you can trigger a group ward based on that damage at any time. The total number maxes at 30% of your max health, and the amount is 5% of the total damage you did in that 10 second charge-up time, whichever is lesser.
    Wardens get a nod on group heals due to their elemental ward and group death save, but the fury group ward is huge, and basically on a minute and ten second timer. (As an example, highest I've done with that group ward was around 35k per person in group, so 35,000*6 (plus more for pets in the group) = 210000 group ward (280000 if you include the amount on the two pets that are normally in my group). (That's spiking to about 115k hp solo healing the mage group).
    Kraeref likes this.
  6. Mermut Well-Known Member

    Wardens get prog
    Wardens can get protective instinct too. :)
    Kraeref likes this.
  7. Elhonna Member

    Bah. Derka derk moment there. Too many holidays and long work days back to back :( The info about the spell is accurate at least lol.
  8. Aneova Member

    Why not have your cake and eat it to? i have a warden and a fury maxed out though I do prefer my Fury over the warden after many years of playing it. I still enjoy running around and doing the warden thing as well.
  9. Chronus Active Member

    Fury is harder to play well in a raid setting but done right it's a great dps to the mage group. Warden is easier in principle to keep a heroic group going and in raid is an easier to job imo, however you eventually get relied on for deathsave rotations which makes it harder. More if you want to be viable ranged dps or melee dps once you get a fight on farm.
  10. Cinnder New Member

    Unquestionably Fury. Currently a far more versatile healer than a Warden.

    Healing wise:
    • Hibernation and Back into the Fray --- "Semi-death save" and massive spike direct heal.
    • Conversion of DPS into Healing --- Furys are tier 2 DPS in raids/heroic zones (whilst still healing!) and with Stormcaller's Renewal, Spirit of the Druidism, Stormbearer's Fury and Howling with the pack (and numerous item procs that do similar) can essential keep pace with a warden whilst cranking out 400k+ DPS.
    • Force of Nature (Left hand-line) prestige - I find it unnatural ;) but when required i will use my AA mirror to pull out the left hand line prestige, macro on my ward/health increasing proc gear.....try it and listen to the crickets/silence from the shamans/clerics on raid.....
    Curing:
    • Raid cure is raid saving...
    DPS:
    • Build yourself into the macro's in the mage group (timewarp etc etc ), practice cast order and achieve tier 2 DPS (at range) whilst solo healing. A Warden CAN DPS well but needs to be a lot closer....

    I view Wardens a bit like Templars.....not utterly broken but noone in their right mind would pick a Templar over a competent Inquisitor :)
    P.S. <----Ex MT Raid Templar who now plays Fury and Inquis....
    flameweaver likes this.
  11. Mermut Well-Known Member

    I have to disagree with this.
    Wardens have lots of healing abilities.. all or our heals are HoTs and we have a group death intervent, plus a stone skin and a 10 sec damage immunity.
    Wardens have the exact same conversion of dps into healing that the fury has// except stormbearer's fury.. but we have windblade in it's place which is pretty awesome.
    Wardens have similar on their left side, though the spec with it hasn't come off my mirror yet.. wards, stoneskins and damage immunity resets.

    Wardens can get three group cures, one which is a cure over time plus they have a pt cure over time.

    Wardens can do just as much dps as furies and heal just as well at the same time. Where the furies are ranged dps, wardens are melee dps... and we have mitigation equivalent to that off chain-wearers with our personal buff. Being melee is not a drawback to dps, it's just different.

    Bottom line comes down to what you prefer, spells/ranged damage or combat art/melee damage. Furies are better designed to help mage groups and work from ranged, wardens are better designed for tank or scout groups and work best in melee. They can both be powerful healers and put out serious dps.
    Kuulei likes this.
  12. Meirril Well-Known Member

    My experience is generally the Wardens are going to have lower raid DPS. The ability to spec group root immunity is very welcome in some encounters. Wardens are able to roll heals constantly while Furies need to be more aware of power consumption. In encounters where the mobs drain power the ability to regen power via healing is very useful. Fortunately most encounters arn't power drains currently. Also Wardens have two death prevents and two short duration damage prevents (a ten second stoneskin, and a 5 hit stoneskin) all on relatively short timers. If your facing a deathtouch with 30 second refresh a single warden can keep a tank up for 5 of them by himself.

    Furies have a raid-wide cure that is not interruptable and cures for a short window of time. This perty much makes them the number 2 cure-bot in the game. (sorry, Inquisitors still win out with their epic cure.) Wardens are very good at cures, just the idea of a raid-wide is perty over the top. Both druids have 2 regular group cures. Their DPS contribution is generally more significant than Wardens but they are also more dependent on doing damage to generate heals than most Wardens. This is both a plus, and a minus depending on the script. In general, it is more of a positive than a detriment.

    In the end estimation it really depends on what your raid composition is. If your running with a bard and chanter in every group the Fury is very powerful, even more so when you can guarentee they will be in a caster DPS group. Wardens favor melee groups not because they have powerful melee buffs but because their own DPS is melee based. If a Warden is worried about survival they will back off and just heal like every other priest which on some fights means trouble with cure range (like any other priest dealing with melee and jousting). Wardens really come into their own when you have a non-optimal raid force where power regen isn't guarenteed. If you don't have enough bards/chanters to go around Wardens can manage their own power and even contribute towards keeping one other person in the group going. Also for some encounters the warden's anti-root anti-snare AA is considered a must for the tank group.
  13. Mermut Well-Known Member

    Wardens lose natural boon, druidism, PI/Howling and Sunwall if they're not dpsing.. that's a bunch of healing and defensive buffs if they're not meleeing.

    Actually, with the addition of prestige, wardens DO have powerful melee buffs now; easily in the same league as inquisitors now.

    These days, the only priests I'm seeing that stay out of melee range except for specific fights are furies. Everybody else is in melee range and again, except for the fury, all of the priests have as much mitigation or more then the scouts... so if the scouts can survive in melee range, the priests can to. Staying at range is, usually, not a problem. Admittedly when it is, wardens, along with the other melee healers and most of the scouts, will lose dps and have to time their heals and cures with the jousts.

    Perhaps it was so in the past, but wardens are no longer the red-headed healers who only get used when nobody else is available.

    I'm not saying wardens are 'better' then furies I'm just saying their not worse. They're just different.
  14. Owli Member

    Fury if you want to raid.
  15. Mermut Well-Known Member

    I raid on my warden.
  16. Owli Member

    :rolleyes:
  17. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Fury if you want to raid with Owli.
  18. Cinnder New Member

    I am sceptical that a Warden can match a (competent) Fury on dps....or heals...
    Without VCs I am parsing 660k on trash and 5th or 6th on raid nameds.....whilst solo healing. Thats very much Tier 2 DPS, the rub is that a large amount of that is converted into heals. Additionally with Health increasing procs and Stormbarrier - my health sits at 100-120,000 on a raid ---> with Protective instinct thats a 33k-40k regenerating ward thats groupwide (30 seconds recast). Whilst wardens can spec for protective instinct can they really get it that high?
    The ONLY reason I can think for having a warden is for deathsave rotations.
    But Please don't try and claim that you do similar DPS!!

    P.S.
    I use 3 AA mirror gear specs:
    1) Full MT heal spec (rarely used!) --> Protective Instinct and Force of Nature Prestige (Group ward and single target ward on tank + other goodies)
    2) Full DPS spec --> Howling with Pack Heroic line and Stormbearer's Fury
    3) Progression spec --> Protective Instinct and Stormbearer's Fury
  19. Mermut Well-Known Member

    I can't claim I do similar dps.. but then nobody in my raid does.. because we're not a hard core raid force. I do think that furies have a higher dps potential then wardens, but that's the same with all of the healer 'pairs'.. one has more defensive tricks and one more offensive tricks. That doesn't make either of them useless in either role. That being said my warden is the highest dpsing healer in the raid.. which includes mystic, fury, inquisitor and defiler. I'm only averaging a bit under 200k dps zon-wide, but that's in mostly EM raid gear from SS with a few pieces of new gear and I'm up with the t2 dps in my raid which is similarly geared.

    A bunch of the warden's dps gets turned into healing too. Aside from the furies myth buff, wardens have the same exact AA abilities to turn dps into heals (and heals into dps) that furies have. Wardens will use natural boon rather then storm caller's renewal since that's heal from melee rather then heal from spell cast, but wardens get more heals from dps with their new prestige as well.
    A fury is a far better healer for a mage group then a warden.. but a warden is a better healer for a scout/tank group then a fury. That's the way the classes are DESIGNED. It takes a talented player to get the max of of either class.. but that is the same for every class in the game.

    Wardens are not better then furies, furies are not better then wardens. They're different with different strengths and weakeness. I am getting tired of hearing that wardens are crappy healers that can't heal or dps.. which I know is clearly not the case. With the new prestige wardens are on par with inquisitors for buffing melee dps and a well played warden is a powerful healing force while putting out meaningful dps at the same time
    Tylia likes this.
  20. Malachy Well-Known Member

    It's quite simple, do you want to melee or do ranged casting? If melee, go warden. If ranged, go fury. You already decided on druid, so this is the critical difference, it's a play style question, the rest is getting into the minutia and will likely change with every GU and xpac.

    I think if you read the class descriptions before you chose, you probably came to the logical conclusion that with the potential for higher dps as a fury, you were willing to sacrifice a small bit of healing edge the warden has. Polls are in and the majority agree with that assertion.
    Neche, Tylia, Krystoffer and 2 others like this.