fury or templar?

I'm thinking of coming back to the game and I have never played a priest. I know I want it to be ranged and I do not want to play a shaman, so that leaves a fury or templar. Extra dps is great and all, but I just want to be able to keep people alive primarily.

Which is more desired in groups and raids and is a stronger healer/curer?

Fury is better curer, hands down. Templar is stronger in a tank group, fury is stronger in a non-tank group.

I assume all non-raid groups will have a tank, so templars are stronger in regular groups? Or the difference is negligible and both can keep up a single group? I appreciate the feedback! As long as I can stay ranged and keep everyone up, I'm good!

I notice there's significantly more furies than templars according to eq2u at cap level (1651 vs 1162). In fact, only wardens are more popular than furies. o.o

Well, that will change. For years, there were about 6 active templars on the planet, there will soon be one on every corner.

For heroic groups... I'm not sure. Templars have group and single target wards and good over time heals. Furies have great over time heals and huge damage reduction on pact of the cheetha.
For most, both can do the job. For the tougher zones, templar will be stronger.

Right now templar is the strongest all round healer in the game, exelent both at single target and group healing, capable of solohealing T2 heroics (no other healer can really do it yet, I guess). It is allso the slowest and most boring class to play

LOL...as I've said before, first time I can think of that vanilla was the flavor of the month.

My warden can solo heal a few T2 heroics.. so templar isn't the only one, just the easiest.

I have solo healed every T2 heroic zone on my defiler, however my success or failure is dependent on the quality of the group rather than on any personal skill. I have also failed miserably on a T1 with a weak group.

Yeah, if the tank doesn't rotate well, he/she is gonna die

the solo healing T2 depends mostly on the dps than the healer tbh. I solo heal on warden all zones ... even prosperus .. which I feared the most

a 7 min fight is hard on any tank/healer .. when u had to use all your temps and just pray real hard. on 1 min fight, most healers can solo heal. A fury can keep cheetah up for a 1 whole min, so if the fight is short, furies are also great. They struggle a bit more when cheetah isn't up (1min30 down time I think)

also furies are great soloers, nice dps, nice AoEs ... so doing sig line is really fast.

furies are good so are templars.

it all depends on playstyle. templars now are played a lot more like shamans than before (relying a lot on group ward) while furies rely on damage reduction.