Warden/Mystic face off!

Discussion in 'Priests' started by GDINE, Aug 7, 2013.

  1. Mae- Well-Known Member

    Ok... I said group cures. Not group heals...
    flameweaver likes this.
  2. GDINE New Member

    So I have a level 11 Warden. Very fun and granted still very low level. I also have level 12 mystic. Ill be quite honest the warden kills things much faster and the regen is super nice. Funny thing is I think I'm actually enjoying the mystic a tad bit more. When I'm fighting I don't even need to use any regen heals be sues my wards have soaked up all the damage. With that being said I personally think the mystic will be nice for my friends with some of the buffs they get. Now to the meat of my post. Could anyone give me a kinda reference point on how to distribute my AA points for my mystic? My warden I went down the melee side but to do that with he mystic you have to go a bit deeper. Also what is "reuse"? Is that how quickly you can recast your spells? Where in the AA line would I find that?
  3. Melindor New Member

    Check out eq2flames.com under mystic thread
    Arielle Nightshade likes this.
  4. GDINE New Member

    Yeah I'm at work and doing this on an iPhone so the eq flames site doesn't load correctly on mobile platforms.
  5. Koinoo Member

    For the other parts of your post, I would suggest reading forums (EQ2Flames is good for this, as suggested by others) and looking over what other players have done for AA choices. You'll find vastly different choices depending on your play style.

    To address your second question (quoted above):

    Reuse (Spell/Ability): This determines how long you need to wait before you can use an ability again after casting it. The max useful reuse is 100%, which effectively halves the base reuse of a spell. For example, your warden's primary single target regeneration line (photosynthesis) has a base reuse of 6 seconds. Once you have acquired 100% reuse (via gear or AA's), you will be able to recast this ability every 3 seconds. There are two types of reuse currently: Spell Reuse Speed and Ability Reuse Speed. Spell Reuse ONLY affects spells while Ability Reuse affects both spells and combat arts (i.e. scout/fighter abilities, various AA granted "melee" abilities, and the "spell to combat art" conversions that mystics, wardens and inquisitors have). Keep your reuse in mind when choose AA abilities which modify the base reuse of class abilities. Typically these AA's will modify reuse by X seconds, versus a percentage. Depending on how much reuse you already have, those spent points may do little to nothing for the reuse of a spell. Starting at around level 80, it becomes very easy for priests/mages to max out reuse.

    Carrying forward, there are a few other modifiers for abilities that you need to be aware of:

    Casting Speed: This determines how quickly you can cast a spell. You can only modify a spell by up to half it's casting speed (or 100% casting speed), but this statistic has an overcap modifier which grants a small amount of Spell Multi Attack (i.e. ability for a spell to hit twice on a single cast). In other words, having over 100% casting speed is not entirely useless (compared to ability/spell reuse, where over 100% is not so useful except in cases where an NPC debuffs reuse). Starting at around level 80, it becomes very easy for priests/mages to max out casting speed.

    Recovery Speed: There is a global recovery timer for all abilities. Basically, when you use an ability, there is a very slight delay before you can use another ability. Recovery Speed modifies this delay. Again, the best you can hope for on Recovery Speed is 100%, which effectively halves your recovery speed. This stat is useful in that it allows you to more quickly chain different abilities back to back. Unfortunately, constraints like server lag/latency can render this stat less useful. Default recovery speed (I believe) is .5 seconds. When you are at max Recovery Speed modifier (100%), the global recovery speed will drop to .25 seconds.

    Spell Multi Attack: Not to be confused with Spell Weapon Multi (which modifies spell/wand autoattack). This stat determines the chance for a spell to cast twice, and is most useful for offensive damaging spells. I'm not honestly sure how well this stat works for direct heals/regens, but it does nothing for wards.

    Potency: Modifies the base amount of your abilities. 10% potency, for example, will increase your base heals and damage spells across the board. Potency does not affect auto attack damage.

    Critical Bonus: Modifies the amount that your abilities and auto-attack damage will critical for. By default, all melee, heal and taunts have a base critical bonus of 130% (i.e. 30% more when they critical), while spells have a base critical bonus of 120%. One thing to note here is that wards are only subject to half your critical bonus when they critical. For example, the base ward critical bonus is 115% (half of 30%). If you have a critical bonus of 50%, all heals but your wards will critical for 180%, while your wards will critical for 140%. This is an older mechanic that has existed since much earlier in the game. As a result, you will find a lot of shamans (defilers, in particular) value potency over critical bonus for their wards.

    Ability Modifier: Adds a flat amount to your abilities, up to 50% of the base. For example, a healing spell that heals for 1,000 can add up to 500 extra healing amount from your Ability Modifier statistic. Potency has the side effect of increasing the amount of ability modifier that a spell will benefit from (i.e. 10% potency on a 1,000 heal will increase that heal's base to 1,100 and allow up to 550 extra healing amount from your Ability Modifier statistic). Some healers (mystics, templars and furies) gain a special ability modifier bonus based on Wisdom score to certain types of spells. While this bonus does not show up in the game UI, it does apply towards the max applicable ability modifier bonus for those spells.

    Hopefully that helps! You can find other breakdowns all over the place for Everquest 2's spell mechanics all over the forums and fan pages which will help you understand the myriad of stats that get thrown onto gear. Some more mathematically inclined players have come up with formulas to calculate everything on paper to determine what is the most useful upgrade.
    Kerrthunk likes this.
  6. Finora Well-Known Member

    Feel free to poke at my AA set up (link to my EQ2U profile is in my sig)> While I do need to update some things to take into account my gear changes, it works for me (namely drop some of the reuse speed for something else).

    You'll definately want to spend the 26 points it takes to get all the melee conversions & weapon mastery in the mystic tree. I personally favor the getting the str & agility lines first in the shaman tree (that's the first 2 on the left hand side of the tree).
  7. Raff Well-Known Member

    Misread that...no biggie
  8. Kerrthunk Member

    Wow. Most helpful explaination of these stats I have seen. Nice, thank you!
  9. Davngr Well-Known Member

    defiler was my first healer and i use to love raiding him, it was great knowing that my class was amazingly important to the raid.

    now? my mystic does the heals that are needed and tons more. currently, like all the other defensive classes in this game defiler is pointless. mystic is funner and more effective.
  10. Daalilama Well-Known Member

    One should never count out the defensive healers capabilities although be nice if soe would adjust them slightly with some of the suggestions given in the past to give them more flexibility.
  11. Ainaree Well-Known Member

    I don't think you're doing the latest challenge content if you feel defilers have somehow been made obsolete. Could not imagine doing Gen'ra HM without any defensive healers... whew.

    Anyhow, since OP is not doing raid content where spike damage mitigation really matters ... I would say Warden is a superior pve instance healer than a Mystic. You can get by being more effective with less gear on a warden.
  12. Ebofu Active Member

    Not sure what defilers give that mystic can't match, considering you play both as purely defensive healers, what difference is the defiler making for you...?
  13. Mermut Well-Known Member

    Defilers wards are slightly larger, they have an extra pt ward (death ward), their myth buff adds a heal to their two primary wards (grp and pt) so they heal while they ward.. they do have more defensive tricks then a mystic. A mystic has more offensive buffs.
  14. Ebofu Active Member

    Those are common misconceptions.

    Excluding shared wards.

    Mystic
    Torpor
    Oberon
    Ancestral Support
    Prophetic Ward

    Defiler
    Death Cries
    Wraithwall
    "Empowered Barrier"

    I am hesitant to prioritise a defiler, they have certain aspects which can be useful for scripts (+Range, AE Auto, 8% DR), I am rather bias but I don't see an abundant need for them.
    Blumfield likes this.
  15. Ainaree Well-Known Member

    The Defiler Mythical that add a heal component to wards hits for about 60-70k. You could argue that Torpor would assist a Mystic in dealing with the damage that exceeds wards, but then Defilers also have Nightmares and Maelstrom which they can keep up as permanent HoT spells for the group.

    You forgot Phantasmal Barrier as a 80k ward that Defilers have.
    And Soul Ward, which spikes to about 1k in warding (while only 8 seconds, it makes the difference.)
    Death Cries adds damage reduction.
    Harbinger (The HP Buff) adds a large ward to the tank whenever damage is taken and regenerates.
    Defiler Shroud of Armor is also considerably more warding than the Mystic Counterpart.
    Spiritual Circle is also a bonus ward.

    In terms of heavy-hitting spike damage a defiler brings much more to the table than a mystic. If you're doing progression they're definitely the more viable healer. Maybe I just like that Malicious Spirits saves bad people.

    However, I will say that for anything other than two or three fights in this current game, a defiler is unnecessary and a mystic can fill the role. If you aren't doing those fights then there's no need to keep a defiler or templar on the roster. (Unless people are still unable to do even fewer of the fights, in which a Defiler/Templar will make the progression easy.)
  16. Koinoo Member

    I still count Soul Ward as an emergency ward. Even with it's severely decreased duration (8 seconds), the resulting ward is quite large and handy if someone starts spiking hard (even with my not-incredible gear I've had it land for around 500k).

    Also, I have never really been a huge fan of Ancestral Support, outside of using it for the short term immunities. The ward only really hits hard if you're in a group where the DPS is solid. Most of the time, I'm dual conversion with a touch of points in Ferocity of Spirits for the crit bonus. The combination of healing and DPS feel more solid in that setup. Consequently, I do the exact same spec (i.e. dual conversions) on defiler for 95% of all content.

    Having played both a mystic and a defiler, the main selling points for me on the defiler are the attached heals on wards (two sizable heals on single target and one attached to group ward) as well as having the rolling regeneration for Maelstrom/Nightmares. Shroud of Armor dominating so much over Runic Armor (close to double the ward) and the non-physical damage reduction proc on the mythical helps shave off a good bit of extra damage from AOEs on the group. For raids still learning their way through content, these little extras help a lot. If you raid the high end and not struggling to progress, then you're not likely going to feel the difference between the two.

    Mystics still have an edge on defilers, though, given how dynamic the class is overall and the non-healing stuff they bring to the table (Bolster, more useful RoA, Stampede, etc.). Defilers have gotten some utility improvements more recently (right-side prestige Countenance proc and the limited crit bonus group buff), but they remain a primarily defensive based healer with so much less to offer a group.

    Even so, I'm a defiler main at heart. It's probably because I just suck as a mystic, but I like to tell myself that I'm just so used to playing a defiler that it comes more natural for me. Or, I'm just stuck in my ways.
  17. Ebofu Active Member

    True about Soul Ward, Phantasmal Barrier has the problem of applying to the lowest hp toons <100%. hp. Harbinger ward... lolol. I've never understood why people are so elated about heal attached to ward, Transcendence spam is pretty decent merely for procs when you don't just hit channeling cuz insta reset on every gward cast...

    The shortcoming with the debate I have always found is that damage is either already fully warded or is just plain unwardable. Also Templars with hp debuff are the 2nd highest damage healer behind mystic. They are pretty stellar, though neglected after everyone copied Russian 4 inq style.
  18. Ainaree Well-Known Member

    Gen'ra tends to hit for 700k and a defiler can somehow manage to ward all of that at times. It's pretty much the fight I would never want to MT heal on my mystic. Like, my only advantage over a defiler on that fight would be a 50' range rez for picking up the tank when he died over and over. Other than HM Gen'ra and HM Talan, a mystic brings much more to the table.

    Who knows what the next expansion will bring though. They definitely tried to balance SG HM around defensive healers having a role again instead of the turn-and-burn of Velious. It may continue after that fashion given how much damage reduction Channelers are going to bring to the table.

    I like my Mystic plenty, but I feel there's a role for every healing class in current game on raids for those clearing the entirety of the content. Anyhow...

    OP topic! Wardens for PvE. There isn't anything that hits hard enough to demand wards over regeneration spells. You won't hurt for power, two cures, ae blocker, high personal damage (definitely melee spec and two hander), etc. There is nothing in current heroic content that a stellar warden can't heal.
  19. Radi Member

    Oh yeah! (c) Mystic have debuff!!! (c)Inq
  20. Radi Member

    At the moment, mystic is the weakest class to play in small groups

    More dots and only one group cure... sh$t, SoE,

    game is not only Raid !