Hi all, in these days I've rerolled on Freeport server and I'm leveling both a fury and a defiler. Now at level 29 I'm beginning to feel the difference between these two healing styles: - FURY, fast click, fast response, good healing Sometimes it gets frenzy to heal but if you can keep up with the incoming damage with regrow it's ok. Healing with a fury is fun but when more of the party start to get damage it gets harder than defiler as long as I've seen. - DEFILER, normal click, slow response, awesome healing Warding, healing. That's all. The main problem that I've with type of healing is that it's a bit slow and even if the ward is still up it's no easy to heal more that 1 player due to casting time. I was just wondering which healing is better as long as I've read that chain and plate healers are more needed in raids and high lvl dungeons. From my experience I prefer druids because I hate cd on spells... but shamans heals are great... Any advice from high level healers? TY!
At endgame (mainly 80+) you will gain a lot of gear that reduces your cast and recast time on your spells, but a Defiler will always be a slow caster. The trick with a warder is to already start to cast the next ward when the previous is about to run out / get used up. With the Defiler you need to anticipate the damage before it actually occurs. There are some nice UI Mods that can show you the time and ward amount remaining in your maintained spell window. These are a huge help and a Defiler definitely is a great healer. The Fury is more straight forward. While it doesn't hurt to have your HOTs already running most of the healing is done on demand. So a Defiler needs more planing and you have more time between the used abilities. The Fury on the other side needs to react as fast as possible and it needs to press much more buttons in the same timespan then a Defiler. Both should be able to heal every heroic content (if they have the right gear). If you want to raid Defilers are in a higher demand then Furies, as wards are a lot more useful then HOTs in a raid environment. You need to decide for yourself, what you like more.
That's a nice reply, thanks. You give me some more element to decide and I'll think I'll go Fury because it fits better my playing style and it's a bit faster in leveling.
I'll add this little blurb: The main issue that druids have in raids is dealing with one-shot damage. That is, cases where the damage being done to their group is more than the max health of that group member. Furies do have Hibernation, but it only saves someone if the incoming damage does not outright kill them in one shot. Wardens have a group deathsave, but that requires more forethought than a constantly running ward. With both shaman, wards effectively raise the amount of damage it takes to kill you and help prevent one shots. That is, if you keep your wards constantly refreshed. Druids are still amazing healers and capable of much more potential healing output compared to a shaman, but just do not handle huge damage spikes very well.
Yesterday I played both char in dungeon "cove of decay" as healer and I've noticed a huge difference (now toons are lvl 30) between them!! Defiler's heals are great and it's really true that he can deal with damage spikes but when more that one group member starts to get damage the slow refreshing heals become a problem, plus group heals are very very slow again. As a fury I've noticed that button smashing is a must but mana is the main issue when healing during long fights... as a defiler I always have much mana left after a tough heal session but this maybe depends on gear. As long as I've tested them I'm starting to feel better with my defiler even If I miss fast heals.
Yea the power usage is Achilles' heel of the Fury. There aren't many ways to counter it yourself with a Fury. There is some power procing gear later on. (e.g. a charm from completing all Lavastorm collections) Your best chance is to try the get an Chanter or at least a bard for your group. Defiler doesn't have mana problems. He even gets an spell that allows him to regenerate a substancial amount of power. But you are also right esp. as long as you don't have your special heals it might happen with a Defiler that you see people dieing and you can't do anything to prevent it as everything is down. Currently you should remember that you have a single and later group emergency ward to use in such situation. Beside that the Defiler has the option (and should for hard fights) to debuff the mob so that he deals a lot less damage. As a last resort you just learned Crystallize Soul. This is a powerful often underused ability, that at least you yourself should use. While that buff runs there is a chance each kill there that you (or a group mate) gains an item (Crystallized Essence or similar name) in your inventory, that can be used for a small fast casting group heal with an added group cure. I would suggest you drag and drop it to your hotbars so you can see if you have one and can quickly use it. If you are regularly playing with the same people I would also suggest to explain the use of the Crystallized Essence to them and suggest that they also move it to their hotbars to help you in an emergency situation.
Very nice advice that of Crystallized souls, ty. Dealing with multiple target is kinda hard even with emergency wards but that's because i'm not skilled enough, yet.
Defilers become much easier with levels (as do all classes, of course). You'll get abilities like Maelstrom, Nightmare (epic mythical ability) and Ancestral Channeling (endline AA, shamans). When you do your mythical questline, your two primary wards also gain a direct heal component. All of the above can help with damage over time or spike damage that hits the group too quickly for wards alone to keep up with. Defilers are also the last priest to deal with power issues, given all of the tools they have available to generate power. I know they struggle somewhat at the lower levels due to slow casting speeds and limited tools, but the class really does open up if you play them to the endgame. Of course, I am bias given that the defiler class is my chosen main
Fury has a powerful power tool in Animal Form if you learn how to use it, plus get tinkering up!...As far as one-shot damage goes. Tortoise Shell and Protective instinct later on help soak a ton of AoE damage. A moderately geared fury that can do decent burst dps can get a 10k ward up on everyone in the group. Highest ward I've gotten is about 20k on each person. Remember that each person gets their own 10-20k ward, so you're looking at 60-120k group ward, which is far and above the largest total ward in the game for a healer. We also have two group cures, which is nice compared to the defiler. I love defiler single target healing, though.
I would just like to chime in something here, the largest total ward in the game is Spirit Aegis, an AA heroic end line available to both shamans at 90, I have seen well over 30k+ wards on every party member in the group from this. Also the largest single target ward in the game is soul ward, which turns 90 percent of your hp into a ward, having personally seen 90k soul wards myself at end game it is a powerful ability. Now I would like to say, while the defiler is by far one of the strongest healers on the healing side of the equation, they sacrifice a few things for that. First they lack a number of general utility abilities including things like a second group cure, and any sort of group dps boosting abilities, together with some of the worst personal dps of different healers tho not by that much if you know how to dps. While furies on the other hand have two group cures, a raid cure and some of the best group dps buffs for mages, and some of the highest personal healer dps in the game.
Ok, now I really don't know which class to play... Both are very cool and playable in solo and group but there's one thing that keep me away from fury atm... I always read in general chat: "need healer for XXX, chain/plate". As i said before I like more furies than defilers but I don't want to level a char till cap and spend long time looking for a raid that needs a leather healer since chain and plate seems preferred. What do you think about it? However I'm leveling the Defiler too, he's even higher level that the fury and I'm beginning to understand better the class: it's kinda fun and even if it's dps is terrible I'm enjoin' it.
Once you get enough AA and your mythical buff you'll see that your wards have healing components to them as well. This will keep the group topped up pretty much all the time and group healing becomes a non issue. I am rarely using my group heal and never the single heals as there's no need for them. Just cast a group ward and that's it, the group is fully healed. at 90 you start to get gear ith a lot of effects, heals on casts, red runes if you raid and there's a lot of runes with wards out there, even your cures and group cures add small wards ( with enough aa ). A defiler is a very potent healer but you will have to learn to prevent damage as much as you can, not heal after it landed which is almost always too late anyway.
