Personally, if I had a choice, I would likely put the healers I trust more in the off tank groups. Why would make an unintitutive choice? It's fairly simple to heal in the MT groups - you are mostly there for buffs and to keep your special heals up. It's the offtank healers that have to pay attention to multiple targets who have less HP and resists (typically), and also help spot heal the MT. I want my best healers to be the ones doing the heavy multitasking. Generally, however, fate deals me such cards that the comparatively near-equal healers fall into the groups they need to be by class type. About Shaman curing, yes, we have an AA line that speeds up our cures - by a tiny amount. Even still, the fact that our Wards take so long to cast means we are often caught either waiting or having to cancel the Ward. Typically, I don't even bother, by the time I can cast the cure some other priest has already cured the effect. As for DPS, while on an encounter of many mobs, which to a Defiler is as a vision of the virgin, my Defile will out-DPS even some DPS classes on occasion, typically I've found that even when I break free from the chains of healing and transform mysteriously into DPS mode, I can't beat a Druid. Your adorable creations that is the pack of wolves/dogs alone provides substantial DPS. Of course, I cannot be certain without actual data - perhaps some could be constructed.
I couldn't help laughing at some 'facts'. Change a few spell names around and this thread could come from the templar forum. "Wrong too, every priest can have the same DPS as ours. They just dont care. Give warden utilty and their DPS will drop, remove templar utility and their DPS will increase." Umm, right - templars have way to much utility and dps, ask any of them. Activate Yaup (which has such lovely sideeffects), beg an illusionist for haste, grab a Blackscale Maul, take a STR potion, strap on a FBSS and cast our miserable little nukes (as I've done in a group with a warden), and, and, and - nope. Best trick to up dps - get a summoner to rename their pet :smileywink: "I think clerics have an AA that can do the same. (speed up casting time of cures)" Yep, spend 8 points in the second to last part of the INT ap line and my group cure goes from 2sec -> 1.9sec casting time. If you looked at the average cast time of cleric spells you would see why we have a casting time reduction ap line. I'm also curious about these raids where the MT stays on 100% health all the time soley from the MT group cleric/shaman, as I've not been on one yet.
It's not that the MT stays at 100% but when he gets spiked, everyone will cast a heal and he will then go to 100% right away. The problem for wardens then is since all our heals are hots they mostly get wasted.
Solf I think you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly the situation. As for fury vs warden, I will say we have a slight edge in the buffing MT and healing department... only slight. Some guilds roll with a fury in the MT group for example. The thing is furies bring offensive buffs and debuffs to the table that we don't. That's not to say I'm starting a 'nurf the fury' idea either, because at the end of the day it's not a fury vs warden for MT group problem. It's a druid vs anyone else. As the defensive healer we're supposed to have strong defensive buffs, but we have to compete with coercers, palladins, shadowknights, conjs, necros, assassins, swashbucklers, wizards and furies for G1. The tank, cleric, shaman and dirge in G1 is sacrosanct and often our buffs aren't strong enough to merit a spot in G1 period, be it a fury or warden. About our dps... it's true that we do more damage then templars. There's no doubt there. Same goes with mystics.... but that's it. I've seen defilers parse 800 and inquisators parse around 900 dps. Furies 1100.... I think without jester's cap we're around 800 dps as top numbers. Going back to G1. Do you know that conjurors have better defensive buffs then us? The only real difference is 321 hps vs 340 mitigation. I'd prefer 340 mitigation from the conj myself.... oh and with no warden in G1 you lose spores too. The best all purpose G1 group has no warden or druid at all in it atm. Then we have no offensive buffs like a fury does so you're better off bringing a fury. That's why I'm saying we're broken. The other issue is us being weaker in buffing because we're a hybrid class. Well the problem for me is it's not what I signed up for. Since I started before the combat revamp I never knew we'd be in the situation we're in and I'm not happy here. Since we have sandstorm and roots I'm convinced we won't be fixed which is why I'm playing another class..... sad. I loved my warden before but I don't want to be a hybrid. I want it to be like it was when I first started which is why I lvled my warden in the first place. I just wish for some clarity from devs on the situation. Are we supposed to be gimped in raiding and a hybrid class? Message Edited by mikemcmodmike on 06-03-2006 10:58 AM
Mikemcmodmike wrote: "it's not a fury vs warden for MT group problem. It's a druid vs anyone else" The only class wardens are competing with for an MT group spot is furies. Unless all druid stackable heallines are available cross raid, not just in group. The MT group in my experience is about 2 issues - buffing the MT AND getting as many stacking heal lines going as possible. I'm curious why wardens (as the more defensive druid) with more HoT's and better power effeciency aren't automatic choices over furies. It looks like I need to compare every spell line if this assumption isn't valid. The only plausable MT group I've seen: MT (hard to do without one) Templar (Better defensive buffs than inquisitor) Defiler (Slightly better than Mystic, and bolster is castable raid wide) Warden Dirge (There has to be a bard or enchanter somewhere for power regen, and stone skin/parrry buff/hate gain are hard to go past - Coercer 2nd choice - hate gain/awesome power/agility buff) Buff class - its this spot that I thought was negotiable and many classes had a claim on Message Edited by Antryg Mistrose on 06-04-2006 03:09 AM
I agree the MT group is about putting as many heal lines as you can but Wardens don't use their group hot when in group 1. It's not mana efficient plus it's more efficient to use your fast casting direct heals on damage spikes. So the role wardens fill really is healing damage spikes with fast casting heals and curing. If you can get your templar and defiler to cure the tank as well as a warden would then there's no need for a warden at all. Buff wise if you go with something like tank, defiler, temp, dirge, coercer and palladin you get just about as much buffing as we'd provide minus the elemental resists. The only thing you lose out on is 321 health, tranquilizing spores (heal proc) and wisdom buffs. That being said you gain the hate increase from the coercer and heal lines and mitigation buff from the palladin. If you need resists you can add a conj instead of a coercer who add just as much resists as a warden plus 340 or so mitigation but you'd also lose the agi buffs wardens and coercers have. The only time you NEED a warden is for elemental g1 dots on trash mobs like in AoA and in cases like that you could use a fury as well. Some people use furies for the stun mitigation buff they have. It's a damage shield plus 1600 or so mitigation they add for 30 seconds. Some guilds feel that it merits being in group 1 over a warden for ..... but my thinking is that's more of a t6 mentality when cures weren't as important. Message Edited by mikemcmodmike on 06-03-2006 09:59 PM
I saw Lipi do 900-1000 on a consistent basis all thru Ascent last time, spiking as much as 1,4k. Without a brig btw. Message Edited by NimSul on 06-04-2006 10:22 AM
Those are good numbers. Was he grouped with a troub and was he getting jester's cap? I'm usually stuck in G1 so don't even get an int buff so I only hit around 700 through AoA.
I wasnt there myself i was just watching the parses when he mocked me in tells :smileysad: He was in a normal caster dps group, prolly something like trub wizzy warden fury scout/caster scout/caster
On Warden vs Fury. Personally, I've been running 2 Furies on occasion in my MT groups for back-to-back Urchins - otherwise it's Templar-Defiler-Warden.
IMO the only reason to use a Warden in G1 is for cure monitoring. Our buffs aren't strong enough otherwise and unless you're a warden who maintains the group hot you aren't adding a heal line.
Wow It's good to see that the arguments as to our usefullness hasn't ebbed! When I left it was shortly after the combat revamp, when I went from MT group to 'wherever there's room'. I'm fine with either, I agree that we badly needed raid utility when I left, and from the sounds of it we still do. Hopefull the powers that be will give us something usefull over the course of the next few updates. For the record, I was a pretty heavy raid warden, but I just don't have the time anymore. Cheers, Dave
It depends how you defined the warden before the combat update, right after the combat update we were so f'd it was silly, prior to the combat update we healed longer but not for as big of numbers each tick (which I miss having the utility of), if we had the same healing numbers over the same duration we had before the cu or immediately after the cu we'd be royally f'd. As a healer only, warden's are in pretty good shape for 95% of solo content ... for raid content just because of the type of heal we have and the way wards and reactives function, we're less than optimal in most situations compared to a shaman or cleric. Shamans and Clerics have utility beyond healing however to benefit a raid that a warden doesn't really have... a warden even at their best can't make a significant enough damage contribution to matter that way and we lack the other utility to do much that way, thus lending credit to the idea we're worthless on raids... which isn't true...we're just not as good as a shaman / cleric because of lack of utility spells that make a difference. Is warden a broken class? No. Healing wise we're a fairly strong class actually, just the actual game mechanic of the type of healing we do is somewhat broken for certain content, but sony has repeatedly said not every class is as good at every situation as every other class... but all classes have their strong points and weak points. We do need something added to our 'raid utility' however to help compensate in that region in some manor because it obviously isn't going to be a massive rework in our healing (which most of us are satisfied with anyways.) to balance ous out competely. Message Edited by Shadus on 06-05-2006 04:13 PM
Well maybe broken is too strong of a word then. The question is if you were min-maxing a raid with equally skilled and equiped players would you bring a Warden. I'm not sure. We are strong healers but are we strong enough to make up for poor buffing... it'd be close. You could build G1 around not having a warden and then have 2 furies in your raid. There are lots of guilds that build up in this way. Is it optimal though is the question. In instances where you do need a G1 druid you could substitute us for a fury and if you are worse off it wouldn't be by much. Compare this to taking out another healer class and you'll see the difference. For the best setup you'll need a templar and inquisator. Inquisators have great offensive buffs with their dps mod and while we have efficient heals they have the best power regen with their one buff that they put on a dps to proc them power. Templars have the best MT buffs in the game. For defilers and mystics I think it's fair to say you're best off having one of each of those classes. Defilers with tendrils of X procs only when the tank is hit and it's a buff they have to cast on the tank. Mystics while they mainly buff stamina overall debuff stronger then a defiler with aoe debuffs. Our strength is the efficiency of our heals. If you have a high dps raid there isn't a need for efficiency. The devs also can't just raise the hps on mobs because guilds that are building will have too hard of a time. So while some guilds reach 20k dps you can't just raise hps because the guilds that hit 10k will suffer too much. As a solution I think the devs need to give us a new buff or improve our existing ones. The problem then lies with pvp. In pvp sandstorm is powerful so they need to balance raiding with overpowering us with the new pvp players. How do you do that is the question and I'm not sure what the devs are going to do. Since the combatrevamp we've been nurfed in a sense through weak training spells so I believe the devs might be happy with where we are. One way to rebalance is to add less then you do to other classes. Maybe that's what's been going on with us. I have my warden parked at cap with 50 AAs waiting to see what will happen. If the new leadership AAs we're getting this expansion are weak then you will know the current situation is the way it will stay. Message Edited by mikemcmodmike on 06-05-2006 09:27 PM
Thats a very valid question. In order to answer that questing you should proberly go to the guild that has the most hardcore and strictest min/max setup for raids and guild recruitment. Could argue some different guilds but im sure we would end up on dissolution being that guild. Currently sporting a rooster of 23 people and beating everything thats been beat in t7 on a weekly basis. So i think you should send a pm with that question to their guild leader. Out of his 23 person rooster he finds that not only 1 but 2 wardens has a spot. And you can be sure his raid can field some of the very highest dps of any raids game wide.
I remember that I earlier stated that it is time for me to leave this topic However since then I've seen interesting tidbits and I'd like a post a couple of lines. From what I've seen it starts to look like (to me) wardens are very-very needed in raids... while you're learning challenging content. This is where your raid is stretched to its limit and this is where power efficiency matters (see Iranos parses and conclusions). Once the content becomes "walk in the park", wardens can be "healblocked" and there's nothing much left to do other than DPS. Well... I'm pretty sure that this is what I would consider completely acceptable (for myself). I do realize that many others may disagree
This is true for every single healer out there, when raids become farm status theres X amount of healing to be done and no more, so if you bring too many healers some are gonna be doing dps on most of the encounters(too many healers can be very low, for us ie we have cleared lyceum with 3 healers but usually we bring more like 6 cos they are on and most of the trash can be solo healed). Because wards block other healing styles its usually the shammies thats seen in the heal parses because theres no need for more than 1 or 2 healers on the encounters anyways. However a warden is perfectly capable of healing that too and having the shammy do dps instead.
This is my main issue with Druids right now. People all think it's such a ludicrous statement until they actually see a dps cleric or shaman at work. We rarely ever see those 4 classes do a lot of damage because they have other things to do during fights, whereas druids are very 2-dimensional (heal and nuke, heal and nuke). Even people behind the scenes are making ridiculous statements like, according to the global parsing, Furies in particular "do 2x more damage than any cleric"... that's such nonsense. I can mach the damage I do using an Inquisitor... and the funny thing is, it is much more power efficient, and just as easy to do... there's not much skill involved, just the same aa/gear choices a druid has to make. I, for one, am all for the druid's lack of utilities such as buffing, debuffing, preventative spells, self-mitigation, etc... In my opinion, druids should be the damage healers, with warden being capable of more efficient/effective healing, and fury more efficient/effective damage. This was the case until they boned us by giving all the priests the potential to do our damage without having to sacrifice their other abilities.
