Kandra

An honest question to my fellow templars.
Every other healer class seems to cry how OP we templars are, and I would love to hear input from others more experienced players/raiders who might have played other healer classes too.

I am normally not one to cry about my class, no matter what I play. I don't compare but just try to do my job as good as possible with the skills/items I have to work with so I am getting rather annoyed at the whining of some others. During my eq2 career I did find my templar to be underpowered or hard to play at times during the different expansions but I always stuck with whatever got thrown at us and I still love my templar no matter what


First blame: We can wear all type of armor (OP SoH Gloves)

Yes we can but I am not willing to give up my plate for much items I can get that are not plate. Except for the chain hat from SoH. I don't really care for the 10% robe tbh. I chose to be a plate healer and that is what I want to be. Yes the SoH gloves are great but that is what, one freaking item a non plate healer can't wear -.-.

Second blame: We are too powerful and the only healer really "needed" T8 raiding

Hmm well, as far as I understand it in raw healing power we would always stay behind an equally geared other healer class due to the mechanics of how our reactives get used up and the very low +heal cap on them. Without Repent our healing power would be very small since I don't really see the reactives do much on hart hitting/double attacking mobs in T8. So Repent was a VERY welcome addition to our arsenal. Lotto heals are nice and everything helps I guess. But they are imo by far not enough and too unreliable to really take into account.

Too powerful AA blame:
Shield Ally: Pretty much only the MT templar needs to have it in his specced (unless you are in a zone where you have very tough adds to OT, then I guess the OT templar would have use for it).

On top you need to give up on other gear/adorments and cut down on the healing power once again to gear up for shield ally specc.

DR: complaints that we are more wanted in a caster groups then druids. I don't see how buff for 24 seconds every 5 minutes is super powerful in a raid - yes of course it's nice but we seriously don't heal a group fast enough on our own to be able to keep a squishy group up during a hard ae encounter. I would think druid classes with HoTs are far more superior in this event.

Blessings: It's a great aa but quite a few items now can only be influenced by "direct means". So I am not sure if it's a good reason for other classes to cry OP.

Together with shamans we do have the longest casting time for heal spells. Which of course can be brought down with items. Which again comes down that we have to carefully chose our gear and balance it for all different kind of situations (which makes it not only expensive but also quite a pain to gear up as a templar imo. Not to mention the mess I have in my bags :p).

We also do have the most costly healing spells if I remember right.
Again, another issue to make gear choices limited and tricky (or costly).

Epic: I can only talk from the fabled version since I guess hell will freeze over before I see my mythical version

Mostly cried about issue by other classes: the immune proc.
Honestly I don't see it go off that much and how big are the changes for it to go off at the VERY right time? The speed cast I think is great and very much in line for one of the slowest casting healers in game.


Overall:

With all the items with stoneskin procs available now, high avoidance in general I don't really see how we can be so OP. We still rely on a tank to get hit for heals even though we are counter-working that with shield ally (always best to not have to heal I guess).

As I understand it, due to our lower raw healing power we got better buffs/avoidance/mitigation toys to compensate.

DPS is laughable at best. I mean I can do decent with specific gear/items but it's still quite a pain to solo (I know after soloing all questlines in RoK). Just mentioning that as well compared to other healers.

For example I tend to think that a healer in a non mt group is a much bigger asset to contribute to the dps for example and we all know that we are not the best dpser even though it can be compensated a bit with gear and aas. (once again sacrificing other aspects that might seem so OP to other healers).


My question now is: Are our heal / utility ratio overall in game (not only raiding) really so out of sync with other healers? Is it really so much harder to raid without a templar?

Heldark

Good post Kan, I pretty much agree. I have always felt that templars are the one class that is well balanced which seems to be reflected in the lack of 'fixes' we see in the updates.

Healing continues to see us regularly in the top two of the raid parse. Im guessing that if we could add in stone skin and shield ally avoidance to that we would probably top that parse.

We can dps if we want to, nothing great but with the right spec we can do decent numbers. Buffs are good but certainly nothing overpowered.

As with most classes, AA spec and equipment choices can make a big difference to our abilities. Nothing unusual there compared to other classes.

We are a 'must have' raid class. But then there are several 'must have' raid classes according to various sources. Funnily enough our raids seem to go just fine when Im not there. Maybe it does make a difference at the top level, but then I suspect every class makes a difference at that level.

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Heldark 80 Templar / 80 Sage (375 Transmuting)
Chantt 80 Illusionist / 80 Alchemist (400 Tinkering)
Trix 75 Woodworker
Gibbet 65 Carpenter
Torran 50 Defiler
Piperr 50 Troubador
The Lost Order
Splitpaw

Kandra

Exactly that is my feeling too. We are well balanced but not OP IF we really focus on getting the needed gear/items speccs for certain encounters or circumstances.


Thanks for the input

Beordan

Hm, I really think that from all the healers available we are hands down the most powerful in regrads to damageprevention-/healingpower FOR TANK HEALING.

Let's break it down:
Shield ally does ~15% correctly specced and geared. A guard and a monk in the raid get the avoidance together with SA to at least 70% Add to that 4-5% stoneskin that is already a passive 20% damage reduction on the tank, just by being in the group.

Repent is one of the single most powerful heals in game. 4k Ward = 4k possible heal for a crushing 8k possible total is great, allthough its on a 30 sec timer. Anything shorter would actually be overpowering I think (not counting items here).

In disregard of what people keep saying, reactives actually do heal and not a little or a useless amount they help a lot keeping the tank alive.
Adding the arcane ward, reverence, the lotto heals, the group balance heal that gives us an arsenal of heals no other class can compete with.
If we add to that 36 sec sanctuary, devine recovery and blessings, we also bring a lot of utility to the table.

Correctly coordinated (JC, RoA, etc) DR actually can be used every ~3 minutes which makes it a really great ability.

Also, being able to wear all kinds of armor is a very nice feature, druids and a little lesser shamans don't share. I honestly cannot understand, why anyone would not wear the chain helmet from SoH, the leather leggins from Levi, or the Robe of Alendine over Plateitems which bring much less to the table. Choice of Gear is a very nice advantage.

Two questions remain to be answered:
- This is overpowered as hell, right?
- Why then do we still need warders and wards so desperately?

To give my answer on the second question first, we need warders, because of the healing and damage mechanics in the game. Each and every healer can single heal all heroic content in the game, correctly specced and geared. And in most cases all of them can even get out a decent amount of DPS on the side. But raidmechanics work differently. There are much more and higher damage peaks, peaks that would in fact kill the tank outright if not prevented somehow. Avoidance is one part of that, wards are right next. in the end, that part of the mechanics is ok, but most of the time it leaves the druids out of the picture.

To answer the second question, NO it is not. Because what else is there, aside from Damage prevention and Health buffs, that we bring to the table? One OK and two meagre debuffs of no notice, thats it. Finished. No DPS increase, no real debuffs, no real DPS.

To summarize, yes, we are great healers, but we are not much of anything else. So no we are not overpowered.

Phrozen

So, are we really so overpowered? Quite simply, Yes.

I recently came back to the game and betrayed to Inquisitor, and jeez, what a difference.

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Kandra

Why did you betray if we are so good? :p

Ok, anyway seriously:
Well but OP in what comparison? Keeping the raid tank alive? Healing overall? Overall utility? DPS (har)

Since like I mentioned, you only have ONE MT and an OT If things go hairy right? So hmm..

I tend to think we need to look at the whole picture. Not every templar has the luxury of healing high end T8 Raiding content.
The game still consists of much other things then raiding only. Unless you are at the very high end top raiding VP of course.

Overpowered if you have the best templar gear in the game listed above here? Quite frankly though - how many templars do have that best setup or have the chance to ever see it?

Are the SoH gloves alone something that would make a mostly legendary geared templar totally OP to any other healer?

Thanks much for all the input btw - really taking in all the new infos

Phrozen

No EU guilds worth a damn wanted another Templar since there's an abundance of them?

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Kandra

heh I was mostly kidding about that but on Vene during EU times I am mostly the only templar online with maybe 2 or 3 additional ones. A guildie templar of mine doesn't play that much right now but hopefully will be back seeing he is the mt templar

Kizee

It was the new inquis clicky on mythical that made you betray right?

Phrozen

I betrayed before the change was announced.

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