Can Defilers be good for raids with a good AA template and careful gearing?

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Drakonus, May 27, 2014.

  1. Drakonus New Member

    I just started a new alt which is a healer cause all I am used to is tanks. Its a Defiler and I want to get it into raiding in the future, but some people tell me they CANNOT do the raids since the new updates. I myself have my own opinion on it because if SOE put the defiler in and its still there what's the point of having it there if it cant raid like the other classes. So I would like to get other peoples judgements on whether the Defiler can raid or not and if so what kind of AA build should I use before deciding to scrap it.
  2. Koko Well-Known Member

    They can raid.

    ToV has rotated a fighter's role from snaps/aggro management to damage mitigation, reallocating the primary damage mitigate-r from the shaman. This isn't to say that wards aren't as strong as they used to be, rather it is saying that ward power isn't as necessary as it was before.

    That said, shaman (and thus defilers) have access to tools that can significantly mitigate the difficulty of some upper-tier ToV encounters. I will use Klandicar for example. Shaman are capable of 'powering through' the AE with Totemic Protection, which heals as a function of damage received rather than character stats. Additionally, Spiritrhelm enables a defiler to remain shielded and avoid being cursed while being able to cure (and heal) a fighter engaged in a 'turned Klandicar' severely increasing raidwide EncDPS duration. While these skills are not necessary to perform the above 'tactics' they enable much simpler (and thus less error prone/safer/faster) encounters.
  3. Sudedor Well-Known Member

    Anyone "can" raid. There are certainly some rather . . . extensive . . . problems with both warding classes (Defiler and Mystic) right now that are most felt in those end game raiding situations.
    Arielle Nightshade likes this.
  4. Arielle Nightshade Well-Known Member

    ..

    ...that sounds really logical and stuff, but it's not true. Ask the Furies, Templars, Mystics and Wardens about how much raiding they got when it was their turn to be 'fixed' by the devs. The same devs swore up and down those classes were playable and wanted, and raid guilds and raid invites (as well as 'you sit this one ok.'?) said something entirely different.

    For that matter, since you are used to tanks, what happened for awhile to Guardians? They were still in the game, but they really weren't main tanking a whole lot for a bit there.

    I'd listen to the long time players of the Defiler class that are now playing their other healers, not the fact that the class is still in the game, so it must be ok.
    Mindsway and Neiloch like this.
  5. Ainaree Well-Known Member

    There have been tweaks made since the launch of the expansion that have put shaman in a better position than they were at launch. There are some things needing to be addressed, of course, but the abandoned state is far from true. Spiritual Leadership is now registering in regards to persistent damage effects on raids and lessens the amount of wear on maintained wards. Totemic Protection puts on a strong showing for any high damage fight as well.

    They are not the strongest healer currently, but to say they are unplayable shows a significant community ignorance of a problem blown out of proportion. It happened to druids and now it happens to shaman. You will be fighting to play a class that currently does not benefit the fullest by mechanics in addition to fighting against people who think shaman are 10x worse off than they are and refuse to give any further consideration to the class.

    We raid with a Defiler and a Mystic. I hate that the playstyle has changed this expansion, personally, but they seem to get along well enough and pull their weight on raids.
    Koko likes this.
  6. Silvr Member

    Up until this expansion I was a main tank group dirge but alted my defiler when we were short healers. For TOV I changed mains to the defiler to fill in a gap we had with healers. I wont go into the are they broken or not debate but I will say that I have had no problems as a defiler doing heroics or raid zones. Now I will tell you that I cannot solo heal the hardest ToV heroic zone but have solo healed every other one. I can also tell you that I still top the HPS parse. To do this I had to ignore all dps related procs and I have pumped Potency at every opportunity. I am in full energized raid gear, Silvrspoon.

    Now compare this to an alt we recently pulled in, fury I believe who in mostly arcane, I have to work harder without a question. The shear number of options they have for rolling heals and cures makes them great healers who is able to do more with less gear.

    I look at the class who used to be a primary warder to keep the tank at full health has changed to a warder to hold the health while the tank gets healed back up to full. I also think that our debuffs (which we have alot of them) are more important then they have been.
  7. Finora Well-Known Member



    Just going to say as a player who has played this game since day one and EQ1 from a couple months after it released until EQ2 came out (and periodically since) , the devs re-balance the classes at the very least every expansion. With nearly every expansion a "top dog" class emerges from each archetype. Every class can typically raid if the organizers of the raids will allow them. Some classes are more efficient in the roles at different times though and some raids will take the more efficient class over the other.

    With this past expansion, defilers and mystics got knocked down to the lower end of the healer heap due to the massive increase in hitpoints and mob damage per hit and the fact their wards stayed pretty much the same as last expansion. It has changed how they have to be played in a raid situation. It's been tweaked as the expansion as gone on and could use some tweaks still.
    Arielle Nightshade and Neiloch like this.
  8. Taka Active Member

    Whats she means by that is you can't just cast your wards and win.
    I got comfy casting wards and not seeing the hp bars move... either at all or significantly.
    Now a days you pre-ward, heal initial damage. ward again to stop the bar from moving, splash a heal to top it off.. reapply ward to stop it goign back down.. debuff, etc maintain..
    old way to heal was
    cast wards...debuff, fail at dps while health didn't decrement, refresh wards, win..

    oh this still applies- cure detriments/curses and clean rez. and pull big, far pulls with sacrificial doggy pet. :)
  9. Avirodar Well-Known Member

    Just wanting to clarify... Did you swap your main from being Mystic, to Channeler? If you did, when did you do this, and why?
    Arielle Nightshade likes this.
  10. Thand Well-Known Member

    Ayh while possible to raid Defilers got the "monk" treatment this expansion. I see a few upper end guilds saying the will not App Monks because they no longer the optimal tank this expatiation due to High level of strike-through/ Which caters to Mitigation tanks. You never know maybe next expansion Defilers and Mystics will be the end all be all Healer.
  11. Ainaree Well-Known Member

    I went from Mystic to Defiler sometime during Siren's Grotto era when our MT healer had dreams of becoming a necromancer. I beta tested DoV extensively (along with some others) and realized the disparity with shaman fairly early on. It was something along the lines of a 30-page feedback thread during Beta, followed by another 40-page feedback thread on live, in which I finally threw in the towel and decided to play something else. I couldn't really stomach druids in DoV overland quested gear dominating my raid-geared shaman, nor did I care to have my gear not fully count toward my heals every upgrade I came across. I had fully intended to quit the game instead but was given the go-ahead to make a change.

    I am certain that they have made some announced changes to shaman mechanics - at least on Zlandicar and Klandicar. Our Defiler (Bless her for taking my spot!) went from doing around 80k HPS with me to roughly 160k, so we pretty much swapped effectiveness on the fight. I think it had something along the lines of Spiritual Leadership working again. I gotta say that the enduring masochist that she is deserved it. :)
  12. Arieste Well-Known Member

    I'm a defiler and i've MT healed and out-of-MT healed every fight up to Zlandicar (which is where we are on progression atm). The HPS is not a sole indicator of anything, but fwiw, I've outparsed (on occasion) every other healer class in HPS on various fights. Defilers can be played well and CAN raid. Are they the best healer class? No.

    The main problem atm is not necessarily that shamans are weak (which they are vs. the type of damage we're getting), but that the top end content is set up so that every raid force needs multiple druids while NEEDing zero shamans. Basically, an ideal raid force atm is "4 druids + 3 or 4 of any other healer" - as a raid force you can be just fine wihtout a cleric, or without a shaman or without a channeler. Whereas you'll be severely gimped without multiple druids.

    To compete as a shaman, you need to be a very good shaman. Whereas to compete as a druid you need to be breathing and not afk more than 50% of the time.

    AA spec frankly doesn't matter that much for a Defiler atm, since half of our AAs are junk. The same is true for gear. I can raid with 100 less AAs and with 3-4 empty equipment slots and still be about 90-95% effective. But I've played a defiler for 10 years and am generally awesome, so ymmv. :)
  13. Mindsway Well-Known Member


    Where can I find this ability? Is it an AA?
  14. Arieste Well-Known Member

    It's "Spiritrealm", which is the top line prestige that gives range increase (including to curse cure). Basically, what he meant was "it allows the defiler to stand farther away, hence avoiding potential detriments".
    Mindsway likes this.
  15. Mindsway Well-Known Member

    Ah okay, thanks!