I do not think more mouse clicks equals less efficient. I count Mana as the level of efficiency and a well played Mystic in the right environment is more efficient then a Templar. I will use an EL experience as an example. 6 of us all in the low 30’s (30-32) were fighting Bir Bears. We had two healers on this occasion, myself (31 Mystic) and a 32 Templar. With 1 pull of a level 35 (OJ group mob) I would cast Disillusion and Keening haze to debuff the mob and then ward. The ward would last through the timer with the mob debuffed. I then would cast another ward 30 seconds later, 2 more debuffs when the first 2 wore off, another ward and by then (90 seconds) the mob was dead. It was over, I never needed to heal and had 80% mana left. Now if we got an add I would then have to make sure both mobs were debuffed and cast an extra ward. So with 2 I would have about 50% mana at the end of the fight, however I was clicking a lot of buttons, remembering what debuffs were on what mob, and so forth. More player involvement then a Templar would need to do, but less mana. I told the Templar I was going to sit out the next battle, as I wanted to see how well a Templar could manage the same fight. We engaged and off the bat she needed to start healing (mana drain), and low and behold, we got an add. At this point she was starting to loose mana fast, so when she was at 10% I jumped back in a saved the tank from what would most likely be a death. Not sure if the tank had hunkered down or not, so he might have lived, but it was not nearly as efficient for the templar as it was for me. Heals are a mana killer, and played right against the right mob (no, not easy, just right) we don’t need to heal. Now, against a group of mobs we are not near as good, I feel more then half of our damage mitigation value comes from debuffing, and being we don’t get a good group debuff (not at 31 anyway) we are far less effective against groups. Against a group I have to chain ward and heal. If the tank is going down fast I might have to group heal (to get the agro) then use phantasm so send the mobs running (gives a good 5-10 seconds of non-damage time for all of the party member’s timers to reset and for me to heal the tank). This scenario we are less effective, but I would claim in 95% of the times I fail to keep the party alive, no other healing class would have been successful. So to use the skiing analogy above, I don’t think we are blue runs compared to other healers being black runs. 90% of the black runs we can all do, where 5% only a Mystic can take and 5% only a templar or druid can take. Oh and one last note. When I am teamed with any other healing class, they become the backup healer by the nature of our healing style. We are not healers, we are designed to make sure the tank never needs to be healed. We are more like damage avoiders. So due to this, if we are doing our job right, the other healing classes don’t have a job. I have a few Templar friend that don’t want to group with my anymore because they feel they’re just being PLed as they have no purpose. That’s the single best thing about being a Mystic, of all the healing classes; you’re the first line of defense. Do your job well and in most cases you don’t need a second line. A Mystic (as long as there are no other Mystics in the group) will never feel unimportant. Other healing classes will. I have played as many hours as a Mystic as most anyone. I am only 31 because I turned XP off a long time ago as my guild showed up from another game and I am waiting on them to catch up. If I had not, I would probably be in my mid 40’s. And you can not convince me that we are a weaker healing class then the others.
I almost take offence, as somehow you don’t believe me, thus I must be lying. But I will do what I can. How do I make these logs you wish to see? Also, I didn’t play my Mystic last night. Anyone know if the new agility patch changed things for peeps pre 40? Edit: my tank will be either a 31-32 Zerker or 30 Guardian for this test. Message Edited by Jerhaa on 02-02-2005 04:58 PM
Fights are always different, logs don't show much you might have to heal/ward like a mofo the first 20% of a mobs health...then not have to do much for the next 60% then heal like a mofo at the end...and all this with the same buffs/debuffs at the begining of the fight
When you get into game, type /log This will turn logging on, you should get a text indictation that it is on. To retrieve the log, it will be a text file in %\program files\sony\everquest 2\logs
I must admit that I haven't been playing my mystic for over 2 weeks now. Our regular group started a newbie group, and I ended up with a conjuror. Instead of having a guardian/mystic (tank/healer) combo, we had a pally/warden combo instead. What I learnt: Our wards, even though perceived as underpowered or inefficient, is very important for the tank to be able to grab aggro and hold it. I say this, because we can stack those wards, and give the tank time to grab aggro before we need to re-ward or start healing. In our newbie group, the warden pre-buffs the pally, and pally pulls, health drops to orange (almost immediately, we were killing the spider queen in BB), and she starts to heal. She lands one heal, and then immediately draws aggro (if not from the named, from the other mobs that came with the named). We didn't manage to pull the aggro off her, and we proceed to wipe as we lost the healer. Second try. In comes a botted mystic of similar levels. We do exactly the same thing, only that the mystic has stack warded the pally. Pally's health does not drop as quick as before, and as a result, the druid did not have to heal as quickly and he managed to draw enough aggro to hold it. When the druid had to heal, she did not draw aggro. All the botted mystic had to do was to slow and re-ward the tank. Maybe our pally sucked (hahaha), but the simple addition of wards and a slow did help alot. The botted mystic did not add any heals, or any dps (main was a swashy). We may be inefficient, but I can tell you that other healers sure love us to be in the same group as they are. -NH
wards are always good when under lvl 20 w/o AQs or similar crafted...when everyone was almost naked, Wards are GREAT, because 0 ac remain 0 ac....but not when a 4000 AC Guardian with a 0 AC Ward
"wards are always good when under lvl 20 w/o AQs or similar crafted...when everyone was almost naked, Wards are GREAT, because 0 ac remain 0 ac....but not when a 4000 AC Guardian with a 0 AC Ward" -Shocking how difficult that concept is to grasp. 4000AC guardian w/ 0AC ward = dead ward, fast.
I hopeyou don't take insult from this, but I didn't have to read further than this line. Noone is arguing that mystics can't be good. What us 'whiners' are saying is that the 'environment' in which mystics are efficient happens along about 10% of the time and the rest of the time we have a very hard time. Clerics and Druids do not have this bizarre variance. It seems to me that most of the detracters from these threads are the ones that seem to have regular groups and guildmate partners that include the correct class-mix or fight in the right places for mystics to actually work. Good for you guys. Personally, wards give me issues and my heals are wimpy.
Case and point, I was in a group last night with my lvl 20 mystic in TS. We took on some lvl 20 gnolls. The encounter I am referring to here was a pair of lvl 20 gnolls each with ^. My wards were not even lasting 10 seconds for the until the first gnoll went down. On top of that so much damage was bypassing the ward, that the tank was already in the orange. I could not ward and heal fast enough, much less try to debuff. Now everyone in the group was lvl 19 or 20, it should not have been that close. After that encounter I had a very poor view of my mystic. There was a lvl 20 fury in the group as well, but they were acting as DPS, until this fight. Afterwhich they became main healer and I went to DPS. We did another few rounds of the exact same type of group, and he had no problem whatsoever dealing with the damage. I did not ward just to see how the fury would handle it, but was ready in case. I also skipped my debuffs just to make sure I was not affecting the outcome as well. After about 5 fights like that with me being a sad form of DPS, I logged off my mystic and came back with my Sorc for higher DPS since the Fury was able to handle healing all by himself. I feel more underpowered than ever before. Edit: Fixed minor spelling error Message Edited by Spagma on 02-03-2005 11:10 AM
Not to be a jerk, but this is a good example of someone saying Mystic's are poor healers, because they are not playing them corectly. If you are not debuffing the mobs, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Also are all your spells app3 or better? Was the tank 19? 20 is a hallmark level. The difference between a 19 tank and a 20 mob is a lot bigger then a 18 tank and a 19 mob. I forget the name of the debuffs at lvl 20, but you should have a haze one and another one. Make sure you land them on both mobs. They don't draw agro, so thow then asap. Also hit each mob with 1 before you apply the second. Stacked while effective enough to be worth doing, does not mitigate damage as well as 1 buff on each mob. So for an example, if I was the healer in this group: Ward the Tank. Make sure the tank draws with a ranged spell. The second you see the tank start his pull animation, fire your first debuff. Click on the other mob, use the other debuff (so you don't have to wait on timers). Re-Ward the tank, even if the ward has not fallen. Over using your wards is a lot more mana efficient then having to throw a heal. Debuff each mob with the debuff that's not on them. Now you shoudl have 2 debuffs on each mob, and at my level, I am done. Sit back and watch the show. At 20 it probably does not work as well, but this would be a good start. Also if you had a full group, your Fury should have been helping out. No need to make it harder then it needs to be.
And your reply here shows one of the reasons why a lot of people think that the shamans are underpowered compared to other healers. In the above example the shaman is required to cast 4 spells just to be able to function properly. The fury only needed to use his heals. In an ancounter like the above it isn't all that much of a problem, but when you fight 4 mobs at the same time it certanly does. Those encounters are heavily front loaded in damage. If you start debuffing those mobs the tank will be dead long before you are done. When the initial frenzy is over and you can start debuffing it is likely that the group is down to only two mobs left and debuffs at that point is pretty much a wast of power. The other part of this equation is that a heal is never resisted. Debuffs are. So if debuffs are part of our way of keeping a group alive a shaman is a healer that can heal when he is lucky, but will get the group wiped on a day where he is unlucky. A skilled shaman can keep a group up in most situations. But why should a group try to find a skilled shaman when you can use any cleric or druid? Now I want to be an active player, so I really don't mind the fact that we have to cast a gazzilion spells in every fight. I also have a regular group, so I never have to go LFG. I'm just worried that eventually shamans will get the rep that druids had in EQ1. Not good enough at healing and not good enough damage = solo for the rest of your career. In games like these it has proven in the past that a jack of all trades is never as good as the sum of its parts. You always want the specialists. And btw, saying that slow does not draw aggro is pure BS Message Edited by Merrygrin on 02-04-2005 08:42 AM
I'm sorry, I hate to sound like I'm insulting you, but accusing other folks of playing mystics badly then suggesting that Hazes don't draw aggro? Yikes - that's pretty 'ironic'. You must be playing with tanks 10 levels above you or have different Haze spells than me, coz if I Haze early the tanks have to work VERY hard to get aggro off me, not to mention if I Haze individuals in a group...
Heh...dont think he's ever been caught in a heal chain, that leaves you no time to cast a slow...your to busy cyclen thru every ward/heal to just keep the tank from purple health....i cry EVAC, when i see myselfwith 20mn left an tank still in red. Cuz i been down that road to many times, an thats even wtih a etra healer in group at times, not always but at times. as for not draw'n agro...heh, i can some times not even cast one spell, an them mobs will just maul me up some. an when i do get agro, i just pray that the extra healer will heal me, cuz if i go into a self heal/ward cycle, its over when the hate reduce'n spell fails (oh nice to say at least i have 900 seconds only to wait to use that again), and i become shaman tank, cuz nothing but a evac will pull that mob off me...and once the goblin even hitched a ride with us, it was so dead set to killn me. experienced shaman in both defiler and mystic...i just love the class, but yes we are sony's unwanted step children. look, in 500 years we forgot how to cast haste... our pet dog died, an we're still grieven over it. our upgrades some times have no change what so ever that i could calculate. Form of the builder, is a friqn beaver....oh if i had a copper for everytime i heard "who wants to shave the beaver"...spell descript says your target will become a beaver, but it never does, its self only....alot of utility spells 900 second timer, an the fear is only good for a short number of lvls after it, before its useless, an it was useless to start, if it worked it was 1-2 seconds if that, longest was 5 that i could recall. buffs dont stack well or right with eachother, i know a few will say why stack em...well i was curious on diffrent strategies, especially if i ever happend to group with more than one shaman class. badger stacks with its upgrade only in the ac...umm to me thats silly, either make it unable to be cast or free up the other caps so it can stack right. food/drink heh...best to starve an die of thirst from my last tests on it...should go up with us in lvl like the other util spells. an dont even go into i dont know how to use my mystic/defiler excuse lol... people must've /friends me, when i log in, /tell hell kicks in request'n my services for their quests....cuz seems miracles happen when everything becomes red, and im group'd with my shaman's. but ya, two resis in a row, if your lucky to cast that many debuffs, before ya go into the short lived heal cycle...sucks, get agro an just had it with in 900 seconds, hope ya remembered to stone' the others before ya started. as for upgraden spells....heh, not sure how its on the other servers, but ppl are price gougen the hell outa our market...even started down the road of sage to stop pay'n over a GP for a spell that will be grey'd out in 10 lvls...and app2's become hell'a expensive coin sink, when added to everything else (but thats pretty common of a gripe for all of our class choices) its just when i fork out gps' for a app2 an only see 5 point diffrence...heh....even worse when finally craft'n that app4 an then test'n it against the app1 - app3 lines...sad, most app 4's as of last month didnt even have a single change from app3, other than price. oh an scriben with out roll'n up your own woodworker/chemist thats for a whole other forum, heh. sages are bunk, cant create one thing others need with out consulting at least the other 2 trades. were a great class, wont say no to that. but does seem to be riden the edge of luck alot of times, to avoid a fast mana drain'n heal loop... ps bring back the 9 gem slots for most spells max to cast at once, cuz this 5 slots for concentrations a joke. and who ever came up with maken it so we can only see a limited amount of currnet sustained spells, and why in the hell do we have to recast sow on zone overs....dam silly an time waste to recast it 5/6 times. an why is our bear form the same as the 1st...and with a [FaarNerfed!] so big that ya can hide 5 gnomes and a halfling in. oh well /rant off /flame on
Jerhaa, I must say that was a very offensive post, and although you say you were not trying to be a jerk, you ended up being so much more. If you read through my post you would have realized your comment was out of place. I mentioned my ward was not staying up on the tank long enought to do anything else. The encounter was: ward before pull, ward on return from pull since it was gone by the time he got back, heal, ward heal ward heal ward heal heal ward for the first 40 seconds of the encounter. I did not have maybe a single second after the tank returned where I was not casting that whole time. Since our debuffs are not insticast, you tell me when I could have possibly squeezed one in. Now I realize that that lvl 20 mobs hit harder, and yes my tank was a lvl 19. But that did not seem to have an affect on the Fury. Note my wards are Adept 1, as I have not had a chance to get any adept 3 as they are expensive, and I have not found a single rare component in all my harvesting. If I need Adept 3 to be affective on mobs that are my same exact level then there is something that is absolutely wrong. I was absolutly surprised at the ineffectiveness of my wards. This was my point, this was my proof. The next time you disagree with someone you should stray away from insulting them atleast until you have a full understanding of the problem. In reading your previous posts, I had originally felt that you were honestly disputing a problem. I now feel you are just attempting to flame and incite aggravation. You have lost respect on this board, and I am sure I am not the only one that feels this way.
Jerhaa has clearly not been paying attention around here. He hasn't yet realized that his debuffs aren't really doing anything unless the mobs are blue or less to the tank. He hasn't realized that in fact his Wards are in fact less efficient than direct healing once tanks reach that magic 50% mitigation, which they should do in their early to mid 20's. It's ok. His character works for him, and once again, for those people, good on ya. But, insulting every Mystic who reads these forums in a single post . . . that's bloody impressive. I've not yet managed it, and that's saying something.
Sorry, I missed your proof for that. And of course as usually I wholeheartedly disagree. Our debuffs in my experience lower the effective level of an NPC by 2 levels, which can make a dramatic difference in the outcome. I don't have the time to make all the logs Bantidman needs so I can only bring up examples: like my group of regular 5 (Berserker 37, Mystic 37, Swashbuckler 37, Warlock 36, Templar 34 at that time) killed the Ancient Watcher (33). I firmly believe that this would have been impossible without the debuffs. (we did not use the Arcane Chalice once btw.) Message Edited by Wolfherz on 02-04-2005 02:02 PM
I must not be playing my mystic correctly. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying my conjuror more now. Besides, I can heal my pet fine without any wards. -NH
One other thing wolf, I dont know who the Ancient watcher is as I am not to that level, but I sure hope he was a ^ ^ ^ groupx2 or something, otherwise you are not saying very much. If not, then congrats on killing a mob a few levels below you. Besides, I do believe you are backing Bandits point, the debuffs do well on mobs that are lower level than you, and even better on single (group con) mobs. You only have to worry about debuffing one mob , then you can focus on healing and casting paper thin wards. From the information you gave, this exactly fits the best case scenario for the debuffs. Unless of course you left out some information, if so please explain.
