Hello friendly forums! I'm thinking of rolling a healer to support my girlfriend's Shadowknight, but I'm having trouble deciding between Fury and Channeler. (I narrowed it down to those two because I figure that an SK would go nicely with a healer class that has some AE DPS.) Could anyone suggest a few pros and cons for either option? I'm not daunted by the Dissonance mechanic, which looks fun to me, but I do like having portals. I've already tested her patience enough with alts, so I'm hoping to get this right the first time!
All I know from playing my SK is they do not really need healing cause they get massive heals as they level. Siphon strike among others keeps an SK going.
I mostly play with a fury in heroics and channeler in raids. Our channeler might not be the best, I don't really have any comparison. I have to say at least in the current expansion I am really feeling the channelers lack of buffs and they give me no confidence whatsoever as a tank with their lackluster ability to actually heal. The few heroics I did with our channeler did not leave me impressed. Furies seem to do more dps and can be very capable healers as well. Once you are geared it doesn't really matter though. I have cleared caverns with a necro healing now that I am fully heroic geared on my tank.
A properly geared and played channeler can do quite well at keeping a main tank up in raids or groups. Channelers operate differently from other priests. While they have heal spells, that's not their first line of defense -- that's their interception ability. It is true they don't have much in the way of buffs, and if that's important you probably shouldn't roll one. But if you want to keep your SK girlfriend up while doing additional damage of your own -- and if you're willing to learn to play the class -- you'll do fine. An SK and a channeler should do well.
Fury is still in really good shape from what I can tell. They are the best DPS healer (especially in aoe fights). Druids in general are great healers right now too so they are the best of both worlds. I love channeler as well, but it has some issues. They are very strong healers, but it doesn't come easy. It's one of the tougher classes to play effectively. They were supposed to have the best priest DPS to make up for that (from an SOE comment due to the lack of buffs) but that isn't currently the case. They rely on gear with damage procs to effectively DPS, which hurts healing potential. Fury doesn't have to worry about this because their dps gear is basically the same as the healing gear.
We rely on gear with damage procs because things like Hoop of Deadly Wrath barely proc for us in comparison to other healers, even going full tilt chain-healing during heavy damage fights. Healing the pet* doesn't trigger 'on heal cast', Healing Barrage doesn't trigger it, and neither do Intercepts. On average, 75% or more of my healing parse is made up of things that 'heal' but aren't actually casted heals. The other 25% is Salubrious Invocation/Vector of Life/Truespirit Rift, which do trigger those effects. What we want the most are things like Eye of Drinal, Spectral Domination, Practiced, Unity etc. The first two there have slick damage procs, and they also boost both your damage and healing when they fire off. There are obviously a lot more procs out there that also do double duty, but those are the ones off the top of my head. *Yes I know Nexus Core wouldn't affect the pet, but I am sadly also wearing a Band of Vile Souls, and casting pet heals does not trigger it. Quick edit: Obviously it depends on the fight as well, something with steady damage that I can heal with JUST double healing barrages and intercept means those 'on heal' procs become even worse and more ineffectual. The numbers I gave above were examples from fights where I have to put out very heavy healing.
Greetings Sophia, I have not spent time leveling a Channeler, so I can't comment on what it'd be like to level one in a duo. But, I have leveled a Fury with my hubby's SK and thought they made an excellent combo! As some of these other fine players have stated, either class would probably do fine paired with a SK Ultimately, just pick the class that you think you'll enjoy playing the most. If you have time, definitely try out both!
If you want to have the ability to mow down mobs, heal like a monster, and not have to do anything different or special to accomplish both- you want a Fury. A decently-played fury can easily put out T2 DPS while maintaining heal output that rivals or tops most other priests. A well-played fury can accomplish near-T1 DPS while maintaining full heal output. The mechanics for fury heals does require the tank to take damage, unlike wards or interception skills, but it is actually quite intuitive. My only word of forewarning is that a fury does not have as many options for saving a group or tank as you might find on a channeler, or most other priests. In your case this may be a perk, as it will force your girlfriend to practice her temp rotation to ensure she survives long enough for you to catch up on heals if you tackle harder content.
Thanks everyone for the information! The vibe I'm getting is that both are strong classes, but maybe the current state of the game favours the Fury a little bit more... For a little context, she's learning to tank and is new to MMOs generally. Instead of starting with a healer, I rolled a Beastlord, and with Stamper trotting along behind us, that's worked just fine until now (we're both at level 84.) I deal lots and lots of damage, she soaks up lots and lots of damage, Stamper cures every now and then and takes his damn time rezzing me... it all seems to work very well, and we've been tearing through the TSO dungeons. My worry is that when we reach current content, their synergy will wane. I have noticed the SK is very good at staying alive, and even pops up again for a second try courtesy of Bloodletter. But my GF isn't a high-pressure player, and I want tanking later on to be as fun for her as possible. (We already bought her the AA bauble just so she wouldn't have to grind, because only I have the patience for that...) So long story short, I'm leaning toward Fury after all these helpful comments. But am I right to assume that in the long run, an SK would be happier with a healer companion? Or is it actually not so implausible that I could run my Beastlord with her (+Stamper) all the way to 100 - while doing meaningful content, obviously? - and have an equally smooth experience?
Maybe late to the party here, but my Channeler was on the same parse of the fury we had in raids in ToV and always top parsing these days for Healer DPS. When I look at raid setups these days (heck even many groups), I always see 1 Channeler in raids (well more then one is pointless ya) and hardly any Furys. My understanding is them, like Wardens got a pretty big hit when it came to healing due to HoT's not being able to cover the amount of HP's people are carrying these days. I guess mostly due to raid persistent DoT's. My biggest gripe about groups is when people are not looking for leather healer. Yes Channeler is leather, but the class can coincide with any healer except itself obviously. It's a very versatile class. But if you are more concerned about group only, then you can go either route I suppose. Fury will give the SK a little more buff wise to their spells.
A fury will always be a perfect duo partner, when your SK tank can heal herself you can dish out DPS and when she needs it you can heal. The only other duo class I would pick for an SK instead of a fury would be a necromancer, they debuff the same resists and deal the same dmg types. Necro and SK together have plenty of healing and the necro can rez aswell as insta revive themselves. They aren't very AE oriented tho but they still have a few. I know this wasn't among the options but just putting it out there as an advice
I am not sure where you got your information, friend, but a decently geared and played Fury or Warden will over-heal most content quite consistently. Druids are in the best position for heals due to the pulse damage, to which druids can respond with their impressive array of group heals/heals-over-time without ever bothering to switch targets to cast single-target heals. Both druids remain incredibly powerful this expac, and a raid that is not running a Fury in the mage group is running sub-optimally. Our raid alliance rolls with a druid in each group, and the two top heal parsers on all named encounters are a Warden and a Fury. While I certainly admit that a good Channeler is a true heal-monster that would likely top the list if we ran one, they do not bring the same utility to the table as a druid. DPS for a Fury is natural, and can be truly impressive. In raid content trash fights, a Fury can do 50% of the DPS of T1 DPS classes, while heroic content trash fights a Fury can pull off closer to 70% T1 DPS. If your Channeler was putting out the same or similar DPS and HPS (same fight) as a Fury then I have to question whether the Fury was being played well (I parsed over 6m DPS on a trash fight in CHH raid this past Thursday). I do not mean to denigrate the Channeler class or your personal skill at it, because Channelers can be a remarkable class if played well, but Channelers do not have the same potential for concurrent heals and DPS as a Fury. Lastly, let me close with an acknowledgement that a Fury is not the optimal choice for a tank group in raid. Furies do not have the same or equivalent set of tools that a Warden does. This is why you do not see many raids with more than one or two Furies. This is not to say that a Fury cannot do it, but simply that there are better choices for a tank group.
On AE trash sets of 8+ targets furies can consistently get top 5 on the parse. Channelers are great for soaking tank damage, but offer little to no utility outside of it. 2-3 Furies rotating Porcupine is actually pretty bomb in this new era of "omgresists". There are "better choices" for a tank group, but tbh no one in this game min maxes anymore. If this game relied on people actually caring about optimal raid performance then none of the top 15 guilds would even have a Shadowknight on their roster, but at least half of them do. If you want to be a tank group fury, go for it. I healed tank group as a fury in Equilibrium when we were working on wing 2 content and did fine. You lack a death save here and there but you can still make it work.
I cant say anything about Channelers as for some reason I have no love for them as healers and have no desire to have one. I do have an Inq, Fury and Defiler and rate them it the order that I listed them but Inq and Fury and pretty close to being my favorites healer toons.
I like the channeler way of doing things. Lots of grpwide dmg interception and sum DR. They can also provide cool dps in AE fights. I played sum channeler in ToV but then tried defiler and enjoyed him a lot more.
From reading your post, I don't think either of these classes will fit what you are looking for. Channelers learning curve is astronomical and I have yet to meet anyone that actually has mastered the class to the point where I actually trust them to heal anything on their own. Furies can be amazing, but even an amazing fury will make the tank sweat in a lot of situations in current content. Even if you are one of the best at either of these classes, you aren't going to provide that easy experience and relaxed environment that it sounds like you are looking for. I would suggest one of the shamans as they currently provide suberb healing in all situations and provide the greatest effective health by far. Which will make your gf's experience much more enjoyable.
That above is about the boldest statement you can make against a class. Not one single channeler can heal by themselves huh?
My defiler was my hardest toon when I was leveling solo but great with a tank type merc and allowed me to have fun playing that toon. He is great for grouping for his wards mainly and had good heals as well and is great debuffer of mobs which help puller and others to take down even the hardest mobs and is wanted for that ability in RAIDS as well.
Must disagree about the channeler Must agree here. I am of course Biassed... and without sounding like an a-hole with a giant e peeen..... i do quite well on my channeler... very well actually. Now, back on point... the two healers are completely different, and IMHO (i also play a warden).. both are very capable healers. But YES, channeler learning curve is pretty steep. Its not a typical healing class. But if you can get past that, and learn it well, its quite powerful... and Buffrat is also correct.. channelers, while can absorb damage VERY well.... are incredibly lackluster in the buffs department.
