Having problems healing as a lone Templar in a group? Always low on power? Feeling the stress of barely keeping your tank alive on long fights? Get more DPS. It's not useful to have more than one tank in a group. So, don't bother inviting extra tanks to fill up empty group slots. Instead, invite more damage dealers. Now here, I'm going to hype Wizards/Warlocks. Tonight I get a tell from a Wizard in Varsoon that he needs a healer. I think hmm okay let's see what happens. I arrive and there's me, a berzerker for tank, 2 wizards and a monk in the group. I think, oh man this is going to not be good. Then the Wizard group leader invites a warlock into the group and says let's go. I'm thinking this is going to be very bad. We head down the books/clay guardians area and first pull... orange^^ guardian. Tank engages, I throw on vitae, the wizards and warlock unload. One or two touch up heals and before I know it battle's over. I think hmm that was pretty nice but maybe we were just lucky. Next pull, red^^ guardian. Same thing as before. I'm thinking hey this is really nice. Tank comments, "Boy these reds are easy." We head to one of the book rooms. Swarm of orange books and a named book. I group vitae and vitae the tank. Tank engages, I have to heal a little more on this one because of the casting books but before I know it battle is over. At this point, I become a Wizard/Warlock group believer. None of us died a single time the entire night and we just rampaged back and forth between the two book rooms stopping only for a breather once or twice. So, when you're making your groups Templars, get as many of these power-packed mages as you can in addition to your tank. It will make your life soooo much easier.
Yes mages are great damage dealers, especially with the speed that power regens out of combat, 2 or 3 of them together in a party is awesome, and with implied targetting they get on the mobs very fast and efficiently compared to melee dps who lose time getting to the mob. But as a healer , having mages can suck when you get adds, the mages just die way too fast.
I've found the following optimal at level 27: 1 x Healer 1 x Tank (any of the fighter classes) 1 x Enchanter 2 x Wizards 1 x Bard Basically between the Bard and chanter your mana rarely if ever runs low, and with the Bards DPS + the Wizards DPS ... very fast fights. Also should work well: 2 x Healer 1 x Tank 2 x Wizard 1 x Bard You need the extra healer here because the enchanter isn't there to keep stuff mezzed while the wizards destroy everything one by one, however between the bard mana song and the Wizards AOE stuff ... Basically any combination of Fighter+Rogue+Healer+Mage should work, but you really want DPS over anything else if you want fast XP.
Yes, I know I had two fighters in my group. I mentioned the monk purely for what my group actually was. I would've preferred the monk to be either another Wizard or an Enchanter. Actually, we got adds a few times. The zerker would taunt it onto him then a wizard would peel off and use their ghetto mez to keep it occupied. The other two wizards would finish off the mob we were working on. The wizards caught aggro once or twice during the night and I didn't have much of a problem keeping them healed until the tank got aggro back. All in all, I like the flimsy little suckers. I actually refused to go into Varsoon today because of my experience with that group. The group that wanted me to go in today consisted of me, defiler, zerker, paladin, monk. Heh... I told the group that we need better dps if we're to keep things going quickly. They most likely would be fine... for a while. But having the extreme downtime between kills just isn't very effective. I'd rather hunt outside with a smaller group chain-pulling even con^^ mobs then go into Varsoon with a group like that. Anyway, just my thoughts on the subject. And thought that maybe this would shed some light on why some Templars feel so ineffective in a group when they're the only healer. Hell, I've felt ineffective at times. But ignorantly blamed it on my seeming inability to keep up with damage over a long fight. The fact was we just weren't putting out enough damage to keep me in power.
The best groups I've been in have followed this configuration: 2 x Healers (1 Cleric, 1 sham or dru) 2 x tanks (1 guardian, 1 pally is the fantasy island DREAM scenario) 2 x DPS (1 ranger, 1 Wizard) The pally intervenes the cleric and wards the Guardian, Sham or Dru acts as backup/debuff on the cleric, mt keeps aggro on mobs while secondary tank builds aggro behind the MT, but if they actually TAKE aggro they stop taunt, meanwhile Ranger pumps out dmg and wizard takes down mobs after they hit 40%. This isn't a FAST group, but it is impossible to stop. If the Secondary Tank is a monk with a feather and one of the DPS is a Swashie you can die and rez Anywhere without worrying about dying again (feign off, the swashy runs off aggro and comes back to freeboot the group) It's a lethal group that may fight slowly, but can take down oranges and reds without breaking a sweat. It's amazing to me, though, how much depends on the MT keeping aggro in this game. In EQ1 the cleric getting pushed around was bad, but they lived a little longer than they do now, could take more, and the world might go on if they died (OMG Ranger / Paladin healing!!! WOOT!) but not EQ2...you lose your healers and you're done, even if you're down to one half dead yellow mob and everyone else is at full health.
The only problem I find with just 1 tank and all casters is when you get adds. Past lvl 20 if a caster gets attacked his odds of surviving a red^^ attack are pretty slim I think 1 healer 1 tank 1-2 scouts 2-3 casters is an ideal party. Last night though I was grouped with 1 tank 2 healers 3 scouts mark of paws was going crazy when I'd cast it and we had no trouble at all taking red ^^ or 2-3 orange ^
