The state of Defilers in ToV

So completely true. Heal parses have always been a pet peeve of mine. Heal parses show the chance each healer had to heal, not how much they can heal for. It should be used primarily as a tool for each person to see how well their heal rotation is working (when you drill down into the parse to see your individual numbers), not to compare with other healers - and I say this from the standpoint of having raided all healer classes.

I agree with Jimie - Shaman needs something besides wards to make them worthwhile. Their healing needs to be fixed, not compared.

This is actually how wards USED to work. Thankfully this was fixed in LU13 (it was a long time ago). I would be truly saddened if this had reared its ugly head again.

Unless they reversed the change from a long time ago that removed exactly what you're speaking of, the real issue is simply that incoming damage is greater that outgoing wards. This means that more direct heals are required to outheal incoming damage. Shamans are left behind in this category as, unlike the other healer classes' primary heals, wards do not apply direct healing (outside of a few one-offs from AAs).

It should be somethat could be proven from the logs...if warded + dammage taken is greater then..the unwarded strikes you have a good argument that the ward is being used before mitigating factors are taken into account.

Ward apply AFTER mitigation. Warders often top the heal parse for the simple reason that the game engine counts wards first.
So even if the other healer can do the job.. even if they are casting MORE heals, the engine, the code, doesn't even look at the non-shaman's heals until the wards are expired or used up.
In the case described, the shaman is healing at capacity and the other healer is making up the little bit that is beyond the shaman's capacity, but the other healers capacity is higher, so even if the shaman isn't there, they can keep the group alive.

Unlike to other healers you privent\absorb incoming damage with "primary\special" heals. And you have exactly the same three direct heals as any other priest (exept Channeler).
Seems people like simple math, so:
What is your single target ward? I'm sure it's over 100k, probably around 200k or even more. Let's say it's 150k.
My reactive is around 50k.
Tank takes 500k hit -
1) You prevent 150k, his health is down by 350k.
2) I heal 50 k back, his health is down by 450k
Tank takes another 500k hit. Your ward is not up.
1) His on -850 now.
2) I heal another 50k back, My tank is on - 950 k
Another hit. Your ward is up again.
1)You prevent 150k , His on -1200
2) I heal 50k. His on -1400
And so on...Wards are still the best tool to keep someone alive. Other healers might be heal faster, but they can't prevent so much damage. Balance is not ideal, but I don't see anything "broken" in shamans either.

And I want to play my illusionist as a mezzer and not a buff-bot/dps toon. Guess what? Game changed. I think last time I actually was asked to mezz raid mobs was Nexona fight or (maybe) Mayong.

Defiler WAS designed around debuffs, hence you have so many, that used to be THE selling point of eq1 shaman as well, slow WAS the king at least back in pre-OoW times. Attack speed and dps debuffs used to actually be fairly useful back in their day, maybe they need to be re-balanced to accommodate new mechanics and stat inflation of mobs. Something like %-based instead of numbers: -40% attack speed, -50% dps, etc.

HUGE issue with this right here. Class balance should be based on 99% of playing population, not on 4 mobs in entire game that only 5 defiler mains will ever see. Those issues should be balanced with encounter design and itemization. There are FAR more defilers that PvP than those that run ToV raids at this point, should we re-balalance the whole class PvE game based on them

too?

I still think they should make wards block a percentage of incoming damage instead of as much as possible, much like the channeler pets. I compare it to channeler pets because it just proves they have no problem with that type of mechanic. If they do this they should also remove all instances of 'non-wardable' damage as well.

-wards will stay up longer
-the concept of sustained healing will stay intact
-shamans will be less strained when using their markedly less powerful set of regular heals
-can even increase ward size since they won't be blocking damage outright

I'll let a shaman handle this one. I can tell you right now you SEVERELY overestimate how high wards are on average.

Doesn't matter what gets played the most. Balance problems are magnified in high end raiding. That's why you see people in high end raiding with problems and people who just run easy heroics or entry level raiding not particularly bothered.

there weren't many PvE shamans to begin with. Now most I know have switched over to wardens/channelers and the ones who haven't would REALLY like to. The problem is that people just switching classes shouldn't be seen as a viable solution to balance problems.

I don't have exact numbers - Your theory is right, but our wards are a lot less than what you've mentioned, which is the problem.
Group ward is about 150K
ST Wards are under 100K (like 75-85K)

The issue isn't with how wards work, it's with the scaling to harder content. Reactives still scale reasonably well with increased Pot/Cb/Amod. HoT's made out like bandits, as they scale the most effectively with better gear. Wards do not, THAT is the problem everyone here is trying to get through to the devs.

My single target ward? Maxes at 90k with all temps and buffs running; average is 70-80k. Group ward maxes at around 150-160k. This is with nearly 550% heal potency.

Yes I know wards are suppose to apply after mitigation. This would not be the first time SoE accidently broke something with a change. Hell just a couple of months back they broke group xp with a change that had nothing to do with group xp. It took people looking at logs to prove it to the devs to and have them fix it. I'm looking for a reason why as people have said on many accounts they cannot even keep an heroic group alive even when they are healing the same amount as another healer would.

If the mobs only do 60k dps you only need to ward or heal 60kdps. It makes no sense that the shamans seem to be still warding as much as other are healing but still not able to keep the groups alive unless those wards being used in part on dammaget that would have been prevented anyway.

Ok. 200 k was a number that many shamans claimed during beta. My reactive is still less I probably need over 700 potency to make them 75-85k.

Yes, scaling is the problem with new content, but I do not like how far wards have gotten away in last few expansions prior to ToV. On my ungeared defiler alt I was pressing 5 buttons to get through heroics without deaths or issues. That is wrong on too many levels. Playing a dps, I have to press over a dozen buttons with proper timing on every boss to do my job, playing my dirge or illy is the same, playing a healer should require pressing of a dozen buttons (and proper timing) not to wipe a group.

You have what - 5 ticks? on a solo reactive, and 13 ticks on group?
Even with all of that ST Ward is 1.5 ticks of your ST reactive, then it's gone, no more prevention, no more minor top-ups, nothing.. just another massive hit from the mob that we have to chain direct heal against to keep the group alive with no more support.

This thread is asking for a current fix to an issue. Nothing has been changed to our current class, and that is what the reported problem is. If they had added another cure for our class, and I complained and asked for them to roll it back, I could see you have a point. However, since they haven't done anything, and this thread is requesting that they repair the disparity that the health changes carried with it, my request is just as valid as any others. If and when they fix shamans, I would like them to make wards viable, not give me a more utility. If SoE decides to change the way shamans work then so be it.

I don't see any problem here. A ward is up-you cast it, not up-you do something else. It's exactly what I'm doing all the time.
Wards are still better then reactives or hots. Sometimes this 70k is the only thing that stays between life and death. Besides, you are not the only healer in your group. Wards help them to heal as well.

Are you able to solo heal heroics on your cleric? How hard is it?, do you feel like your fingers are bleeding, looking for ANYTHING you can do to help keep the group alive? or does it feel just slightly harder than the last expansion for you?

Please, before commenting further on how "wards are fine" roll a defiler and try to keep a group alive in a heroic zone without the support of another healer. Then come back and tell us how well you did and exactly how "fine" wards are.

Thanks.

As I said on beta: debuffs need to be adjusted, if they are not doing what they should. But I don't see many issues with wards.
As Devs also said, they are not happy with the balance, but they want to watch more. It's only two weeks after ToV, be patient

nm