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Which priest to roll?
Ossot
Member Posts: 10
I'm a hard core raider/pvper. I'm told the PvP server is dead.. so it's looking like PvE it is. I've been playing priests exclusively in MMOs for years. I get due to the low pop there's not going to be a ton of end-game raid guilds to join. So which priest class is the most needed? Both population wise, and due to it's role.
Coming off a f2p where I realized that it takes thousands of dollars to be ubar.. so I'm not too worried about the population being small. If i wanted to play with 50mil retards I'd do play WoW like everyone else. Just wanting to be okay to get into an end-game guild. Don't want to be the priest class everyone and their brother plays.
Comments
I play Cleric and I like it much,but the other healer classes are great too. If you plan to raid then you should ask your guild leaders what healer class the guild is in most need for at the moment,in the raids you need more than 1 healer class.
Wellcome to vanguard:-)
It is so hard to predict what will be needed by a particular raid guild by the time you are at raiding level. There is no 'one class' that is better at healing that others. I'd recommend trying out all the classes and the various sub-classes and affinities and see what you and enjoy and what you excel at.
We 'try out' a couple healers every week for our raid-force and the biggest difference always comes down to how well people can play their class and do the truly understand all in the complexities. With all the people from IoD now leveling into raiding levels it's amazing how many recruits we get and how few fully understand their class and their racial abilities.
Well I have not played in about 2 months but I would say if you went Bloodmage, cloth healer bit more challenging to lvl but worth it in the end for raiding, or disciple, leather wearing cross between monk and healer alot of heals come from atks but you get direct heals too.
Both these classes were in high demand for most guilds. Next would be a shammy but most ppl have a bear shammy alt for buffs.
I personally like the Bloodmage the most. I've leveled a Shaman to 15, to test it out and get the Pheonix abilities. I've played with the Cleric and Disciple. But none of the healer classes quite catch my attention like the Bloodmage does. You're a healer, first and foremost, but you almost feel like a dps-caster at the same time. Half of your dps spells not only damage foes, but will also heal yourself and/or allies. It's a very unique class, possibly my favorite class I've ever played in any MMO.
The mechanics for Bloodmage are very unique and enjoyable (as they are for most other classes in the game). I recommend Bloodmage, then again I recommend all of the classes in the game. It really comes down to what you want your class and playstyle to be.
"Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know." William Saroyan
Agree on the Bloodmage. I have a level 50 Bloodmage as an alt. I raid with him when needed and a BMG can make a huge difference in some fights with the ability to form a pact with the tank, damage/crit/tap heal, etc. I know different players go different set-ups with their Bloodmages, but I've gone full blown, Spell Damage, Crit Chance, Int, Wis, Con, highest possible spell accuracy, Damage focus, etc. etc. etc. to maximize my damage output which in turn maximizes my healing output. I can't even remember the last time I went into a healing stance.
However, a Bloodmage really requires a raider to be on their toes. Quick reactions etc. I've employed the use of a healer hot-bar and various macros to help me in the really tough fights. There is so much going on that it's easy to make a mistake
Like using an arcane critical heal on a mob that strives off of arcane and is healed by it 
You can one shot your entire group if you don't know which mobs are resistant/weak/strong to different spell types. I guess you could say I've made that mistake more than once.... or twice.....
Thanks for the replies. Good stuff. I was worried about what class to pick, and whether people were actually really playing the game lol.
As for the horrible priests and people playing their class. I understand completely. I'm sure every player thinks they're good, but I come from many o' years of main group healing. The last few being world firsting stuff in EQ2, which from what I read, has similar raid scripts as VG. Whether that's true or not I don't know, or care.
One more question, one of the races I was looking at has the ability to take his groups mana and redistribute it evenly. Is that incredibly valuable endgame? It seems as if it's a healer's dream. Get low on mana and just gank your parties
...
Yes, 15-minute timer. So there are very few fights where you can use it twice. Temporal Acceleration and maybe some other spells and/or bard song components can reduce this timer more. It is a great for emergency mana regeneration, and with the right group placement it provides a huge increase in mana.
It's a great racial for a caster I think, but my going High-Elf you'd be giving up some other passive racials and stats that are good for a Bloodmage. Although I think High-Elf would be great for a cleric.
Disciple is ultimate killing machine. No need for mana, crazy survival abilities, nice dmg. I can kill 2 4dot mobs at time and solo 5dot bosses above my level. Biggest drawback - lack of AOE abilities and crowd control
Generally, most raid groups take one of each priest class along with them if they can, so don't sweat picking the right class.
It all boils down to your playstyle. Try out the different classes for a bit, and choose the one you fall in love with.
I settled on Cleric. The DPS is horrendous at times, but I love being able to have 3 mobs on me... finally get one dead then have respawns and still not worry about running away. Slow 'n steady..
I played a cleric for a bit. Very fun class and exactly like what you described. I also like the look of the plate gear. Really a hard class to beat.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
You could always go War Cleric and spec out for that approach. It's pretty amazing what the surviveability and damange output of a War Cleric can be in group and raid situations.
A top raiding guild will definitely want all 4 types of healers.
Disciple and Blood Mage are potentially more rare than Cleric and Shaman.
- Cleric is the standard healer class, good defense and at level 50 an insane quickheal (ca 11k instant, 8 sec recast), but with mana problems in long fights. They get a good general choice of buffs and some nice abilities to buff their group damage. There are 5 variants, called Affinities, chosen at level 20: Preservation, Peace, War, Death and Purity. For top raiding guilds, most likely only Preservation and War are interesting; Preservation comes with good immunities and War comes with, for a Cleric, best dps. Best race for top raiding guilds is probably Highelf for their racial ability and maximum Mana (both helping against the mana problems of the Cleric), or alternatively Qalian Human for their racial and the ability to put 5 points per level into Vit (all other races that allow Cleric can only put 4 points there). A general warning: Cleric is the worst dps class in the game, so while you will be unkillable solo, you wont have much of a killing speed. Choosing War or Death as Affinity for levelup might be a preferable option.
- Shaman comes in 3 variants, called Patron, chosen at level 15 - Bear as Tankish Healer with best END Regen buff in the game, Wolf as Melee DPS-ish healer with crit buff, runspeed buff, stealth and other features, and Phoenix as Mage-ish healer with energy regen buff (but Psionicist are better mage buffers). Unlike for Cleric, your choice of specialization will very strongly influence your playstyle. Top raiding guilds will most likely prefer Bear Shamans, and a Wolf Shaman as well once they have a Bear. Phoenix is crap though - bad defense, no deaggro, no dps, and once you have a Psi and any other Shaman they have no noteworthy stacking buffs either. Like with Cleric, your Patron is changeable. Top raiding guilds will probably prefer if you are Goblin for the +3 Vit, or Wood Elf for +2 Vit and Elven -2% on mana useage.
- Disciple is the monk version of healers. They are the most melee dps focussed variant and have a Fake Death, which is instant but quite unreliable. Their ability to heal without mana makes them very desireable for certain mobs. Their other ability to put up special shorttime buffs called "Endowments" on a single target by using certain sequences of attacks make them a very desireable class to have; the most popular endowment there puts 1.5k HP up, an important buff for the main tank. In respect to normal buffs though the Disciple has only an extremely short list to offer. All in all I dont know that much about Disciple, simply because I dont play them. They are even more unpopular than Blood Mage, but not because they are bad. Best race is probably again human, though Goblin should also work well.
- Blood Mage is often cited as the strongest healer of all, which, as a player of 3 of the 4 healer classes, I cannot confirm. But for certain it is the healer class with the best dps, getting into areas where other mages are, though Disciple comes close. BM is a very unusual in many respects. They can heal with lifetaps, and they can groupheal on a critical hit. Both heals dont cause aggro beyond the damage dealt, making the BM the most aggro friendly healer class as long as they only use their lifetaps and not their traditional heals. They also can distribute damage between people, and can heal themselves from the group damage. Their buffs are mostly hitpoints and mage stuff. Another noteworthy and popular feature are their symbiotes, though usually people only care about the Jolt one that allows to have peak dps for a short time once every 5 minutes. Blood Mages also make excellent solists, combining a strong ability to heal themselves, and excellent dps. Top raiding guilds will probaly prefer if you are Darkelf for their 10% spell damage buff they get at level 10, on top of +2 Int (but its very easy to max Int even if you dont get any Int bonus at all).