Perhaps its flamebait but that is not my intention, please keep this in mind. Also keep in mind I am new to the game. Please read before you call a tactical strike on me. I have a grand total of three semi-played characters. A Erudite Necromancer(35 level), Arasai Defiler(42 level), Eudite Templar(24, note this was my start character before deciding to go Gold). I realize I am a healer as a Defiler but while I have noticed, as perhaps expected, the necromanancer can run things at 30 that the defiler has issues with at 40. I really like playing the Defiler, perhaps I would really like playing a Mystic but Im unwilling to run both to 40 to see the comparison considering their similarity. Im finding now that I hit my mid 30s to early 40s Im at a "peak". Its becoming VERY painful to run any "tough"(ie: mining quests in kaladim) quests my level solo and while when Im in a group with the classic Main Tank I seem to be able to typically heal pretty well that classic group seems to be borderline non-existant. I played EQ1 for about eight years... Im questioning the worthwhile time to bother playing this class. I cant cast heals that really "count" right now fast enough to matter and my counter parts such as wardens and templars seem to crazily out damage me. Example, I ran with a group in Kaladim for a short time and even before my pet would reach a target they all had it stone cold dead. Its worse though. They had ENTIRE groups stone cold dead. Meanwhile my pet was just wandering back to my side. No spell I have casts that fast other than perhaps the instant (15 minute timer) wards which were 99% useless in these cases because no one got hit and our group was full of healers. Before you note Im referring to my pet I am simply using it as an example. If you want a better reference than take Fuliginous Whip. It wouldnt even be 30% through the cast bar before I started to see large numbers of the mobs drop and vanish off my MT target only to be replaced with the next which was all but dead. Absolute corruption was the same situation. I spent my time running around hitting Wrath when the timer would cycle and a few other minor spells and heals. Honestly the only thing I did remotely "well" was cure which I think was simply because everyone else was ignoring it. When they cared they seemed to be able to cure just as fast and well as I. The only "successful" and enjoyable "group run" I have had thus far was a Duo run with an SK tanking in Varsoon. It seemed to go quite well in our low to mid 30s. That is we finished with only one incident of the SK dying which was a lag issue. What Im wondering is what really is my place and is it worth continuing? Is this class kind of the bastage child that the original Shaman was for 6+ years in EQ1? I seriously enjoy empowering the people I party with. Im not a DPS monger. I like making the mobs feel like crap and my companions tear them apart in the process. These debuffs though seem to be effectively worthless. Things die just too fast to matter. Is my place simply going to be in MT groups in raids runs or even that? Sorry If I have offended as that is not my intention. If this is just a result of noobishness lack of play then Im fine with that. Id just be really upset at the game if I play to level 50-60 only to find out Im still in the boat I am apparently stuck in now or even worse and find out I cant even group because Im 100% replaceable with benefits.
In the lower lvls the defiler can be a bit painfull to solo, but it depends a lot on what you spec it for. Spec yours for melee damage first, You want tribal rage , then improve your defile asm uch as you can via aa and spell quality. Spec dog as well, he will help with wards / cures. Don't forget to spec Cannibalize for limitless power. Before you go into combat pre-ward yourself. it's a question of how you play here. Personally i soloed my defiler to 90 and that was before the stat explosion. It should be even easier now with the crazy stats you get on the low level items. Bottom line, the more aa you get the better ( as with any class ). Once you get your mythical buff that will help a lot as well. Until then though, suck it up, we do kill slower than most classes, but we are pretty much unkillable and very desirable at end game. Lastly it's down to the player as well. You cannot just mash buttons and expect to be a great defiler, you'll need to think what you do and when. Don't forget we stop damage from landing, so we really need to be on our toes in difficult circumstances. All in all it's a very fun class , well worth leveling to 90. Don't compare defiler with necro, necro is arguably one of the best soloers ( i might be a bit biased here hehe ).
I definitely do not mash. I always preward and I use the pet to stop the first few hits on myself. The combos are simple enough and obvious.I pretty well always open up with atrophy (or now umbral trap)after warding and depending debuff the mob further. The pet is sent in just before the "slow" hits regardless of group or single target. I then lay in with combos such as imprecate, DP, putrefy, wrath, whip etc. Getting the proper combo aligned and adjusting depending on what happens. But for example at level 30 in Kaladim the Grungetalon pickmaster three groups for the ore I found it hard if not impossible to take them out. While I sat there one day and watched a solo 29 warden have little issue doing this and pretty well did so without any downtime. I saw a very similar outcome though more of a joke comparatively from a 30 warlock(joke on us and warden). Now Im not really comparing necros and warlocks to us. My real point before was that even when in a group of more than 2 (tank and me) I was quite useless because the dps output of the other classes was so fast heals were rarely needed or they could provide their own. My dps wasnt even worth the time to press a button. The example above of Kaladim to me says it all. The warden very well could have been well equipped etc but I find it hard to believe they had items so far above me they were capable of what they did on that alone. I had done just about every quest in butchblock and had items from it and even a few legendary drops(even so far as having the leaping mount not that is mattered here). I realize it would be nice to have hard numbers to show what was going on but I dont. I do know though that the comparison was quite ludicrous to see visually. My conclusion was, and is, that DPS rules this game like so many other games have gone and healing, buffing etc are at best secondary or relegated, as you seem to have indicated, to "End Game". It is a fun class but honestly I can tell we are severely lacking compared to our counterparts(read: healers) for PVE. I think Ill probably drop the class as Im a casual player and hence "End Game" equates to "No Game" for the likes of me as no one pulls you into raids unless you treat the game as if its a)Your Job or b)Your Second Job. Thanks for feedback.
Well, the raid comments are not exactly true. Not every raid guild is a hardcore one. There's plenty of raid alliances you can join for example, or bar that even PUR's. The options are there to get the gear. However, even if you don't raid, the defiler is still an awesome healer. Apart from the massive healing output and some nice debuffs, you have beast which is basically unkillable. My defiler atm is an alt, with some average gear, tofs x2 jewelry, a couple of EM x4 armor and the rest is PQ armor. With that gear I can solo kill the first 5 encounters in PR and that gives some very nice plat every 3 days. I am a bit stuck on the charm encounter but i am sure i can do that as well if I wanted. Yes, it's definitely not an easy class to play, but once you start to see how to play it properly, it can be quite rewarding.
When you say we have beast which is unkillable I assume you do not mean the wolf? I hope not because that thing either has to be baby sat, never get hit or never fight to survive. My pet CONSTANTLY died in a level 50ish run with it on the tanks target. This effectively made a very large number of my skills useless. ie: speed buffs to party and the supposedly "chance" wards and cures. Useless because it was either dead or since it could not attack without dying that entire area of benefits it supposedly provides would never happen. I dont even want to really mention the merc healer we had. That thing could start a cure cast after me and beat me to the punch. Healed for easily 4-5 times what I could (ie: person is at 30% hp and they are healed to near 100%). My heals were "dents" compared to its near "full restores". All of this while it was able to double as a low dps tank. It would take on 3-4 mobs that if I had tried to do that and even just keep people healed would have been absolutely impossible because I constantly find myself interrupted and stunned ALL the time if pretty well any add comes after me. Not to mention Id be dead in seconds. Which as a side note even with this merc healing like a demigod it NEVER agro'd. Mobs would agro me even when I wasnt healing. Tank would agro and they would make a straight charge for me. W...T...F!? If this is how merc healers compare to all healers than healers in EQ2 are going to be unemployed. Honestly Im thinking running around as a berserker with a merc healer is going to provide a lot more utility and game content access.
amarth wrote: Well, if you solo content, you have to think of it this way : you are the tank , not the pet. Poor dog dog can't tank much . The mercs are rubbish in current high end content. Anything else can be done without them. Try different combinations,it's not like leveling is hard or takes too long, see which one you like more.
Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote: If you notice what I wrote the pet is *NOT* tanking. I repeat, the pet is *NOT* tanking. Even with AE immunity now the pet still constantly dies. Even using "/pet range" or not sending it into a fight it stil reactively becomes a corpse frequently. Of course in the later case of it standing next to me it renders 90% of the purpose of the pet useless and hence it may as well not even exist. For the record when soloing in the general outdoors the pet pretty well never dies unless something goes horribly wrong. Its when the pet is supposed to be at its most useful (group/raid instance) that it is actually showing itself to be border line useless. I have an idea. Give the Defiler pet the HP, evasion and ac of a Merc Dirge. Got to watch one of these effectively solo tank all of Sunken City without hardly breaking a sweat. Maybe mercs are rubbish at end game but everywhere else they literally devastate everything in their path.
i enjoy my defiler a lot more at level 90 with maxed AA's. they are awesome solo group healers when played right and geared out. i almost quit when i got to DoV prior to having the Dov quest gear or PQ gear and it took me forever to kill white and yellow mobs. frustrating! but many months later with more practice, raid gear and a good AA spec, she's a beast as my raid toon. i wouldn't level one up again though because it was painful and i was still new to the game at the time and learning the class. it's a lot better for me now. try out different AA specs and get an AA mirror made so you can have a spec for solo play and one for group and healing. that's helped me a bit. good luck!
76 and I get owned by regular yellow 78 pirate npcs in the Moors. I have all my buffs up even those that really are not needed. Basically it works like this (and Ive tried other combos with no change in effectiveness): Carrion Warding, Ancient Shroud (on me), Atrophy, Abohorrent Seal, Bane of Warding, Abomination. At this point, many times as its cast, target starts hitting me. I have either just prior or at that moment sent in pet. Immediately hit Leg Bite(WT! is this something I have to initiate?). Then I open with Phalanx then Dazing Bash. I then follow with a combo of imprecate, heroic, yada yada. My dps isnt the issue and here is why. *IF* I get to cast at this point the mob is dead. Even groups of them but thats not what happens. No rather this is what happens. *Grey spell bar* CAST: Voices *Grey spell bar* *Grey spell bar* *Grey spell bar* *repeat* repeat until dead. For a "meleeish" chain wearing class what is up with our, mob sneezes on the other side of the zone and we are stunned fror 30 seconds? Before you note Im referring to one type of npc I am not. Stunning is a massive issue when I group. I find myself constantly stunned even when Im not being directly attacked. Its ridiculous. Healers are supposed to be stout enough to not be impaired by hits and yet I see cloth classes taking the same hits without even flinching. And regarding healing... Unless there is an about face turn of events between 78 to 90 (inclusive) not only can we not heal as well as a merc but Templars make us look like kindergarten healers. LOL Its really a shame debuffing and largely healing for average runs and such is useless in this game. The DPS market is already ruled by Chinese MMOs and WoWish games. This is my build with primarily wis/sta equip, few fables, all level range. http://tinyurl.com/7zyqkpr I will need to look into the Mirror AA stuff. Never knew it existed. Perhaps if I was geared for melee Id do better but that means now I need to go back and collect items, PITA! Any suggestions on a solo build vs group build? Preferably one taht can mitigate some stunning as its a HUGE issue.
Well nothing is stopping you from getting a Mirror of achievements and speccing for aoe damage : Defile / Avenging Ancestors then all you need to do is go in , hit 2 buttons and laugh while seing the groups fall dead at your feet. Don't forget to use your single buffs on yourself as you will take the damage : tendrils of horror, invective. Then you can also get gear which procs heals / wards. Then you can use an offensive stance , use the dog attack buff as well. There's plenty of options but you need to think a bit and try new things. If a spec doesn't work, improvise. I would spec HP everywhere you can including heroic tree, then make sure you have phys resistance. You spent too many AA in Ritual - i believe 6 should do fine. Don't bother using AA to increase your solo heals, waste of points, I preffer Shadow Trap as it's a green debuff. soul Ward kinda useless, I preffer hexation, works very well on heroics / names. Curseweaving pretty much a waste of points. In heroics tree for solo play I'd use SpiritFire not Spirit Companion. Basically think what you'll benefit from in Solo mode. Always enhance things which damage groups , or lower their attack speed and the such. You can even use Fear and send one mob packing for a while as you work on the others. These should help a bit .
Perdigon wrote: Willing to post a link to a suggested build? I presume this also means going to for equipment thats not WIS/STA or is that still an ok route? Had no idea about this mirror until the last post and what little Ive read I have to be a level 70+ crafter to even have a remote chance or creation. Still researching this... I always have all of my buffs on including those not applicable. Tendrils and Invective are always on myself during solo and I even use the Harbringer on myself and dog. I have no clue what this "offensive stance" is. I cant find any information regarding this in the past 15 minutes googling. I find comments about stances but nothing indicating what they are, how to use, etc. Is this an actual skill/spell or just your reference to "attack like cazy" which if the later... yah.. thats what I do when I solo as if I have a choice. I dont see any spec that helps with stuns nor with pet health. The avoidance perks for the pet in the trees either a)dont work at all or b)just never are needed. I state this because even with them so far my pet drops dead just like it did before having them. On that note our pets are WAY TO WEAK. Period. This is a FACT. Little testing and my pet has under 5000HP. Um... regular running around the vast majority of mobs have at least one hit that lands for 2800-3800 and the rest have numerous hits that land for in excess of 5000. The pet is a joke. Im not expecting it to dish out DPS but its HP, AC and Mitigation is absolute rubbish. Sometimes the pet just magically gets agro and when it does. Its over. In groups though Ive seen it repeatedly (even after getting the "immunity to non-direct AE") die instantly even when its by my side not attacking. Im not aware of anything I picked that really helps "solo heals" specifically but rather "keep me alive as nothing else will".Unless you mean the warding points in the Defile tree which for solo Id probably agree. I think for the most part I have spec'd "HP" everywhere I can. Most of my race attributes are some sort of HP or Phys Mit. The only other one is where I can pick WIS which I did. Currently I have nearly 13000 HP. My supposedly awsome pet has noticeably less than 5000. I know this for a fact because if I heal it for about 4700 its a full heal when it still has about 8-10% health. This is ridiculous. Honestly I wish they would just up the pets buff, make the warding etc and auto random, make the pet not attack for damage and make it incapable of dying. As things are the pet is a huge cost in overhead with at best random semi-decent return. Huge risk, random possibly good return is a bad investment. The purpose of Curseweaving and Ritual points are to make spells more readily available and Ive seen all of these points make a MASSIVE difference in my effectiveness. Still now our DPS is so low that in group Im 100% useless but at least I can cast faster and more often. Im finding it hard to see where these points would go to really make any difference to make up for the incredible loss on "reuse" alone let alone casting speed. Defile and Maelstrom alone benefit orders of magnitude from these selections. I dont know what "soul ward" is. If you mean the Defiler tree for Enchance shroud of armour and emergencing warding... I debated this one. THey are really nice when I use them but its not often. For solo Id say they are probably 99% useless. If I had the mirror Id definitely drop these. I dont have access to the heroics tab and if I have to purchase content to make the Defiler what it should be then I have to question playing the game at all. Fear is really kind of worthless. I find it funny that our only agro mitigation spell causes hordes of mobs to run off and bring back hordes more. BRILLIANT! Majority of the time this spell is a detriment/useless or only good to "RUN AWAY!".
Here is a spec that Profe (a veritable fount of shaman information) posted on Flames http://beetny.com/eq2aa/?GU61;602n1...e@1a@1aaa@18@21 Also for worldwide class chat /join guk.defilers Now I am a mystic, not a defiler but I have always found Profe's advice useful
I would try something like this for solo play : Defiler Beetny Solo spec Stances are the 2 end of line abilities in Shadow - Defiler : Spiritual Ally and Warding Spirits. In your Main tree, which doesn't show on beetny , I prefer Sta, not Wis, and Phy resistance. Anything else is secondary.
First I would like to say thanks for all the positive feedback. I realize some of my posts might sound a bit harsh though that intention was never there. Anyhow... I will be giving the solo builds you noted a shot though I will not I see little difference between what I have now and whats been shown other than the number of AAs. Maybe that is really the key and this character just has not "woken up". The only place I see so far Im "lacking" are the 5 points in emergency warding which I entirely agree for solo seem utterly worthless and frankly might even be for a healer build since some of it might be mitigated by one off diety spells, or so it seems.
Just dropping my two-penneth in on the thread. Firstly, soloing a defiler up is THE worst thing in the game. They are the worst DPS character out there and most skills on the way up are about survivability, not about killing stuff. You should find that staying alive is not a problem, but killing before stuff repops behind you is more of an issue The best advice I can offer is to group up with anyone on the way up, and preferably get a nice guild mate to power level you through zones, even if only to level lock and get AAs instead. Secondly, in the higher levels things open up slightly for us, especially once we get our Myth weapon/buff and we have a decent amount of AAs. Encounter fights become a pleasure with some quite impressive parses to show for it (personal best of 145k DPS on a fight in Drunder x2 while in the MT group). OK, I have all EM and some HM gear, but I am nowhere near being the top dog defiler on the server. A lot of what has been said in the thread above is relevant at the higher levels - for example, the offensive and defensive stances are the two endline AAs on the Shadows tree. My AA build - http://u.eq2wire.com/soe/aas/876173725653 I only run with this build now. I used to have a solo setup where I took out all the stuff that helps groups and threw it all into increasing our meagre DPS spells but the difference was negligible and I decided the hassle of switching between specs all the time wasn't worth the effort. When levelling up I would suggest the priorities are: - Fill up the Shaman tree first. The benefits of the end lines in this tree far outweigh the others, and go in this order: - STR line down to Spiritual Foresight. You want the doggy to have AOE immunity or you will be constantly recasting it. And it also has the benefit of proccing a group ward which is active quite a lot (I set up an ACT trigger to find out how useful it was). - AGI line down to Tribal Rage. This is very very useful when soloing, but you have to make sure you don't have a spell casting autoattack weapon in your ranged slot because if you do you will find you keep switching to spell autoattack instead of melee autoattack, and spell autoattack is rubbish. - Fill up enough AAs int the WIS line to get onto the SF abilities. The stuff in this line is useful anyway, especially the Ability Reuse. - Once you get into the SF line you MUST put 8 points into Spiritual Leadership. The triggered ward alone should be enough to keep you alive in all solo fights while levelling, with maybe a little ward/heal to top up occasionally. - Put enough points into the group cure/RoA buff to get the endline. The fast casting huge group heal is a life saver in everything you do, from solo to instances and raids. - Next go into the Defiler tree and put enough points into it to get Cannibalize. With this spell you will never run out of power. I would say it is vital. The first 20 points in this tree I would go for Enhance: Shroud of Armour, Enhance: Bane of Warding, Enhance: Tendrils of Horror and Enhance: Defile. I would also be sorely tempted to put 5 points in Enhance: Maelstrom as well. - After that I would work on the Shadows tree to get the Pandemic, Prophetic Protection and the two endlines. Then the rest should be self explanatory where to go once you have the experience in the class -
Again, big thanks! So Ive hit 85 and I concentrated a bit more on DPS in the AA tree and picked up some new gear (nothing major) that adds a signifcant amount of crit chance (64% atm). Ive also put more into the speed reuse on the shaman tree and got tribal rage and the ward. Topped off with a few other items here and there (also picked up an AA mirror and saved my old healing build for a cheap way back to a starting point). Judgment thus far. HUGE difference. I am actually beginning to like the character for more than the RP aspect of it. The character seems to be waking up now and while I still have serious issues with stuns grandmaster carrior warding VI and all the little wards procing more often it matters little and I just absorb my way through the stuns to a dead mob(s). For the most part I have solo'ed this character up to this level and while it was excrutiating at times it seems to be hitting a decent stride now. I also got a chance to mentor down a fair amount and learned about the ability to "buy" down your level so you can go back and run the older quests. The things I witnessed prior I suspect were related to this and why those other characters were so seemingly unstoppable. When I do this I find myself to effectively stomp my way through those old areas just as they did. The dog (even with AOE protection) is still a constant hassel for me. I really do not know what Im "doing wrong(tm)". Solo he rarely dies but if I group in an instance he constantly gets trashed and most of the time its of the instant dead event type. I never even notice his HP drop. I just hear the pup cry and he's dead. Anyhow, I think things are looking up and my suspicion is that I will be enjoying the character much more the more AA and better items I obtain.
(unedited rant ensues and note I do not have AoD or Velious) My objective is to give someone insight before they waste so much time playing this class. The bad part is I suspect this applies game wide and is only partially related to the class itself. Some direct points before I rant: -Ancestral Avenger doesnt work. -Our pet dies overly frequently in group dungeons regardless of AA. -Why are things like the pet bite a separate cast? It should be auto. -Why is rabies a spell I cast. Does my player have rabies? Its a skill on my pet so why am I casting it? -See above two as this applies to numerous issues on the defiler tree line, maybe mystic too... -Our dps is beyond abysmal. Yes, I realize we are a healer but of course if healers were really required then it would matter and since we are not, it doesnt for 99% of the game (note 99%, Im not talking epic here but it probably applies in that as well). If you want to make it so I can heal like the merc then Ill accept my useless dps but one should not be given without a return on the other and we absolutely are not in that boat. -Even though we are a healer why is it other healer classes heal as well or better (inquisitor) and can out dps even some dps classes. Obviously the defiler class needs serious help on dps as we totally s-u-c-k. -Even pushing AAs out the bung to speed up casts and having some level of speed up on many items the duration of cast for our spells is dreadful at best. Suggestions: 1)Up our dps. If nothing else just consolidate some of our spells into single casts. We are far too micromanaged as it is. Healing in this game is borderline useless as dps is the name of the game. Things die before anyone needs a heal and death is trivial at best so no one really cares. 2)Lose our pet or make it sidelined for buffs and just eye candy. Preferrably, get rid of it and just give us a buff in its place that stacks with things like dirge melee speed etc. 3)NERF the wabjubus out of mercs. Or is this a marketing plan to get people to buy AoD because if it is, in my case its about to backfire and make me quit being a paying player and likely entirely quit the game. 4)Drop the various USELESS spells such as avenger, hex, etc and give us something useful. Maybe an occasional raise the dead horde spell like a necro to send "pets" into a fight. Afterall, shaman are known for making zombies. The only debuff I have thats worth anything are my two slow spells (umbral trap and atrophy) and they are borderline useful and primarily only in solo. How about ONE encounter wide slow spell with little agro. Maybe make umbral a bit better with less agro and same AAs and drop atrophy entirely. ie: reduce umbral cast time and recast, increase its reduction in atk speed and maybe add a snare to it. 5)Give us the preemptive protection that defiler mercs get, drop all our other wards and add more power to our AE heal and reduce its cast time and reuse time. Final judgement: 1)Seeing someone heal (and I have this in a log) for 638880 hp == cheats. Why should I bother playing... 2)On a normal day... 2a)Our class is worthless, why? 2aa)Merc defiler has a spell apparently called "Preemptive Protection" that at level 70 wards for nearly 10000(9839) damage(this is NO exaggeration). This is approximately 4000 points above a Master Carrion Warding spell at this same level. Do the math... where does this spell come from? I cant find it in google and I dont see it on the tree. 2ab)Merc defiler, see above spell, can cast it it about every 2 minutes. 2ac)Merc defiler, see above spell, lasts 2 minutes. 2b)Merc defiler heals for approximately 5000 damage, regardless of situation, AOE heal. I wont bother with single heals as you can imagine. This is more than I can muster even dropping dropping blessing before casting sacrifice. What!? 2ba)Merc defiler, see above spell, casts it in about 2 seconds less time than you can with average equipment. Basically its as if the merc has the most uber epic gear one can obtain PLUS bonuses you cant get. Its even faster than your single target heals. 2c)At level 75 (wont name zone but it starts with an L) our group cure MIGHT drop one injury. MIGHT! 2ca)Mail of Souls never (never has) cured jack diddly junk. Has anyone actually seen this spell cure anything? Ever? 2cb)Merc is a bit slow on direct cures but its group cure is faster and works everytime on at least 1 injury. Would appear many times, several at once like us casting a direct cure. 3)Merc doesnt use a pet, why? 3a)Because our pet is a f'ing pile of junk and 99.9% useless and dies 99.9% of the time doing nothing. 3b)With a defiler merc your defiler pet will almost never die, because its a better healer than you could be regardess of anything. 4)PS. Ancenstral Avenger, tested 5 times now, doesnt work or if it does its so pathetic that you never actually see it happen nor see its effects logged. ... blah blah blah to hell with it.
wow, you're getting pretty angry. I've played a defiler since the beginning of TSO ( 3-4 years ago I think ... ) and leveled him solo with no power leveling involved. He was my first lvl 90 so no veteran bonus either. If you think defiler is useless you shouldn't really play one. I will only address a few of your issue: Leg Bite is a spell which INTERRUPTS your opponent. Asking for it to be made self cast is just stupid and shows you don't understand your spells at all. You basically see your opponent casting something bad,hit Leg Bite and interrupt it. Do you see now how worthless your suggestion is? Hexation is useless ? I'll just say lol. Mail of souls does not cure anything ? An enemy debuff pust x levels of something on you, if your cure spell does not dispel more than that then you won't cure it ? Make sense ? read your description of your cure spell, look at how many levels of debuff the enemy has put on you. If he has more than you then you're not gonna cure it. In the true spirit of Homer Simpson I have to say Doh. Bottom line - always upgrade your spells to at least Expert level. My advice to you is play another class because, sadly you don't know / understand anything about defilers. Or , if you must play a defiler, at least read what your spells do and try to understand them. In the heat of the battle, if you don't know what to cast and when then you're worthless. Please note we are prevention healers, we don't even let damage land and that means a shaman - be it defiler or mystic - plays very diferently from anything you're used to from other games. Speed cast comes with gear so hit level 90 first and work on that I find that dogdog is very valuable but one must know how to use it. You haven't mastered that art yet aparently. Drop all our wards ? That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen on these forums and I am without reply on that one except go play something else. Seriously.
wow, you're getting pretty angry. Nope, just severely disappointed that I wasted 87 levels that would be better spent elsewhere. I've played a defiler since the beginning of TSO ( 3-4 years ago I think ... ) and leveled him solo with no power leveling involved. He was my first lvl 90 so no veteran bonus either. I have solo'ed to 87 and its the first character I actually played to any serious degree. If I was incompetant Id not have made it this far. Also, no PL and effectively no grouping other the occasional hookup that each time showed my how crap the class is especially with a merc priest present. If you think defiler is useless you shouldn't really play one. Ive already worked towards that ends. Replace said defiler with merc defiler. So I shall correct my statement. Worthless as a PC, god like as an NPC merc. I will only address a few of your issue: You really should address them all as the post is as a whole not to be cherry picked for symantic butchering. Leg Bite is a spell which INTERRUPTS your opponent. Asking for it to be made self cast is just stupid and shows you don't understand your spells at all. You basically see your opponent casting something bad,hit Leg Bite and interrupt it. Do you see now how worthless your suggestion is? If by "interrupts" it means resisted much of the time on much of the trash mobs. Ok, you got me. I have yet to see this work. Perhaps its a lag issue on my end.. Im fully aware it supposedly interrupts but I have to question their defition of that word. Odd thing is dazing bash seems to work consistently aside from epic mobs Perhaps thats the key. Leg bite only works on epic mobs which means a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of game content. Better off with dazing bash (solo anyhow) than leg bite other than the bites dps. Which the later is pathetic at best and borderline not worth the effort to press the button. Of course the biggest winner on wasting points on this is the fact you have zero choice to get to the rest of the tree as far as I can tell without blowing points on it. Hexation is useless ? I'll just say lol. Yep, Im not the only one making this complaint. But hey... just maybe it is useful a whopping .001% of the time. Note the significant digits in that number. I will give you this, Ive had little to no use for it so I could be wrong on this one. I doubt it though. Mail of souls does not cure anything ? An enemy debuff pust x levels of something on you, if your cure spell does not dispel more than that then you won't cure it ? Make sense ? read your description of your cure spell, look at how many levels of debuff the enemy has put on you. If he has more than you then you're not gonna cure it. In the true spirit of Homer Simpson I have to say Doh. Bottom line - always upgrade your spells to at least Expert level. My Mail of Souls is expert as a matter of fact and I think I have seen it cure a full round of injuries across the party a handful of times in 87 levels. Also to note it doesnt touch the pet nor mercs or so it appears as everytime I have seen it actuall do anything it never touched them. Strange how group heal works though... Besides, why is it that my spell needs to be expert to even be useful? If thats the case then it should be an AA not a spell. Cut my cure cast time to instant and recovery to instant and Id gladly give up this POS called mail of souls. Amof give me 2 leg bites as MOS doesnt work anyhow. My advice to you is play another class because, sadly you don't know / understand anything about defilers. I am now and I fully understand them. The Merc Defiler showed me the truth about this class. If I didnt understand the class use Id not have been able to solo, including some instances to level 87. Fail on your part. Or , if you must play a defiler, at least read what your spells do and try to understand them. In the heat of the battle, if you don't know what to cast and when then you're worthless. Please note we are prevention healers, we don't even let damage land and that means a shaman - be it defiler or mystic - plays very diferently from anything you're used to from other games. I have no problem keep wards on people and doing it in a timely fashion etc. The only problem with them is that a merc defiler at the same level has a single ward that is equivalent to BOTH of my expert and master acient and carrior warding combined and it is an instant cast with approximately a 2 min recast but its also lasts 2 minutes and the top it off its GROUP. You are not going to honestly try and compare anything we have to that are you? Or maybe there is something in the AoD/Velious paks that make us crazy powerful healers beacuse so far, Im not seeing it. I dont care how good you are at playing when you cast spell X and it hits Y it results in Z + any item etc benefits. YOU and your SKILL have zero to do with the numbers that roll out of that cast. Its called game mechanics. Fact is the merc heals for vastly more, vastly faster, wards for vastly more, vastly faster and Im being nice and conservative when I say "vastly" beacuse its more like the difference between scratching your butt and tearing a hole in it. Speed cast comes with gear so hit level 90 first and work on that Perhaps but the point is still valid and stands. I have casting speed on nearly every item on the character. Im not uber, Im average. If that means average is pathetic then so be it. I find that dogdog is very valuable but one must know how to use it. You haven't mastered that art yet aparently. The dogs benefits are not useless but when its constantly dies you lose said benefits and hence, its useless. What is there to master? Even if I dont send the pet in and I stand back half a mile my pet constantly dies and YES I have the AE protection and I have every AA point I can get my hands on to buff the pet up. Again note, I DO NOT have AoD or Velious. I have to spend more time healing my pet in groups than I do the group and NO the pet doesnt have agro. Half the time its not even in the fight which negates a good part of any of its benefits. Drop all our wards ? That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen on these forums and I am without reply on that one except go play something else. Seriously. Clearly you didnt read what I stated. I said drop in them in favour of other skills. ie: Give me the mercs Ward and yes... Drop all our wards because they will be useless at that point. Clearly you havent run with a merc defiler. Or is this Preemptive Protection ward something on a tree I have no access to and does not appear to be mentioned with repeated google, ixquick, yahoo etc searches?
Hmm, before you continue raging, think how long have you played a defiler. If your dog dies learn to protect it. If it still dies it means you don't know how to use it properly which applies to pretty much anything you post. Someone like you should not be making suggestions. If I ask you what's best for defilers between potency and crit bonus I bet you cannot explain which and why. Stop raging and either learn to play a defiler or play another class.
