[EQ2] Healing Strategies questions

[Meeo]

Since im fairly new to the EQ2 scene, im curious how everyone else handles their healers on this game? On other games like rift or wow, i used either click bars/Mouseovers boxes, or something similar, i also had a keymap to disable the Healers DPS Key so i can Heal more with that toon.

With 2 healers in my group, Warden and Templar, i'm curious to know what you guys/gals think would be best within the enviorment of this game. Im still very new to the game. only level 13 with all my toons. The group make up is: SK Troub Illy Wiz Temp Ward.

Would it better to setup some sort of click box/mouseover(if that is even in game), or make some sort of macro for targeting people and just spamming heals. Im leaving towards the Warden as i like the HoTs and the AoE HoTs. The Templar has a decent AoE direct heal which could be nice.

Im looking to start doing harder things with my team maybe move into the shared dungeons tonight, but after running into some difficulties with healing last night just doing mobs 3 or 4 levels higher my tank almost died a few times.

[Lyonheart]

It has been awhile since i had a primary healer in my team, I 3box now with 3 mercs. One is a healer and does a good job.. one of my 3 is a melee speced warden, but she has good AE heals and oh shit buttons that i use video FX for ( click bars would prob be better )

There are two ways you can use your healer. When you make a macro and the spell is beneficial ( buffs/heals) you can write the name of the intended target in the macro "target box" .. if you leave it empty it will cast on self if nothing is targeted, if you are assisting and targeting the mob.. the heal will land on whoever the mob was targeting when you started the cast. I use a combo of both.. my main heal spam was no targets.. it would heal whoever the mobs targeting ( mostly the tank right? ), but if the mob switches targets, the heal will land on the new target ( like your wiz pulling agro ). Im sure you could set up some macros+key maps+click bars ( or the new menus in isboxer? ) for healing individual team members in emergencies.

I have found that i rarely needed to heal individuals.. when i had an "oh shit" moment, my wardens AE heals saved the day.. and wardens have "death save" type buffs as well. But as I said, i now use a merc healer and my warden is dps specced and back up heals only.

Search this forum... Khat has some really good threads on macros as well.

[Meeo]

After playing a bit more these last few days, i can see how strong the Warden can be, so far i ran into maybe 8 situations where i wiped do to an incorrect pull (whole rooms with named in Crushbone) which led me to wiping, also due to my key press delay that i've been running into also is my hinderance in attempting to recover (which is something im working through by tweaking keymaps and using send delays,). All in all i can say i love this game more then i did wow and rift, on par with EQ1 in its current state.

[Ellay]

As an update, I used primarily Warden and at 95 trying to maximize DPS while getting the best bang out of heals... let me tell you at 95 with crit % you're always capped at 100%, so everything you cast is always going to be a crit, the numbers get insane my team has about 400% crit chance. Why 400%? because the way to fix it in dungeons is depending on where you are fighting you lose crit %. IE it will reduce your crit chance by 175% in Sleeper's Tomb : Awakening at all times, so you need 275% crit to guarentee you will crit. Now to maximize your dps further, you go into things such as crit bonus and potency, multi attack etc. I think this method works really well.

So with that in mind, my healer always crits when using a heal spell and it's usually for a massive amount. I can run every single dungeon in the game just having a Fury ( I didn't mention that, I swapped the Warden to Fury for more DPS), and using 1 group heal over time spell casting everytime it is up, it basically is a full heal to the group every 2 seconds just about, the main tank is an SK and also has self heals always going off. The only time my tank dies is to being one shot. Which leads me to my next point, there are some hard mode fights where I can't complete yet because my tank doesn't have the gear or my group isn't doing enough damage. The way to fix this (which I don't want to do). Is to get a second healer that is a Shaman, using Wards. If you run a 2 healer setup, one of them needs to be a Mystic or a Defiler. It basically just allows you to add onto your current hp through a ward so you won't get oneshot.

Additionally I have my healer spamming damage, if I need to do anything extra on heals besides the 1 group heal I'm already doing, I'll push my heal button macro which starts off with /cancel_spellcast then the heal spell.

[Meeo]

As an update, I used primarily Warden and at 95 trying to maximize DPS while getting the best bang out of heals... let me tell you at 95 with crit % you're always capped at 100%, so everything you cast is always going to be a crit, the numbers get insane my team has about 400% crit chance. Why 400%? because the way to fix it in dungeons is depending on where you are fighting you lose crit %. IE it will reduce your crit chance by 175% in Sleeper's Tomb : Awakening at all times, so you need 275% crit to guarentee you will crit. Now to maximize your dps further, you go into things such as crit bonus and potency, multi attack etc. I think this method works really well.

So with that in mind, my healer always crits when using a heal spell and it's usually for a massive amount. I can run every single dungeon in the game just having a Fury ( I didn't mention that, I swapped the Warden to Fury for more DPS), and using 1 group heal over time spell casting everytime it is up, it basically is a full heal to the group every 2 seconds just about, the main tank is an SK and also has self heals always going off. The only time my tank dies is to being one shot. Which leads me to my next point, there are some hard mode fights where I can't complete yet because my tank doesn't have the gear or my group isn't doing enough damage. The way to fix this (which I don't want to do). Is to get a second healer that is a Shaman, using Wards. If you run a 2 healer setup, one of them needs to be a Mystic or a Defiler. It basically just allows you to add onto your current hp through a ward so you won't get oneshot.

Additionally I have my healer spamming damage, if I need to do anything extra on heals besides the 1 group heal I'm already doing, I'll push my heal button macro which starts off with /cancel_spellcast then the heal spell.

Great Details ill have to check out those 2 classes, what is your full class make-up at this time Ellay?

[Lyonheart]

From what i heave read.. Inquisitors are the best dps/healers in the game ( end game ) they do crazy dps and they heal while they dps ( melee dps ). I will be leveling one soon. Ill see if i can get a parse posted of one of the raids i go on with the guild i am in. The inq ( guild leader ) did 1million DPS last boss we killed Sunday.

[Meeo]

I've been pondering rerolling my toon to a Guardian, BL, Dirge, Coercer, Wizard, Inquisitor, any thoughts? I've basically thinking of droping a second/Off-healer in light of an inquisitor.

or something like Guardian(or SK?), Troub, Wizard, Fury, Necro, Mystic; there are so many damn combination i'm getting my self lost. :-(

[Ellay]

My class makeup is SK, Fury, Wiz, Illy, Conj, Troub. It is primarily a ranged based team. Only the tank needs to be in melee range and the rest can sit back and dps. I tried speccing a warden melee and converting the illy to more melee based but a lot of fights there is aoe's that you need to joust out of or avoid completely. It is just so much less hassle being able to dps from afar and still maintain good damage. On a lot of fights you can position your team behind a boss and go to town, but for every 5 of those, there will be a boss where you need to joust or move away and I want optimal uptime so no melee for me, although they do a lot of damage.
Second issue with melee is they are extremely dependant on auto attack swings, while casting isn't.

[Meeo]

If you were to switch on of your toons out for stay a mystic what would it be?

[Lyonheart]

a lot of fights there is aoe's that you need to joust out of or avoid completely. .

The term "joust" used to confuse me.. SKs have an ability called joust and it ports you TO the mobs. When they use " you have to joust when the mob starts to cast his AE" i was like " umm.. dont I want to get out? not port into the AE?" lol! but after seeing "joust" used so many times in fights, i knew what they meant. I had just never seen it used for "GTFO" before.. So i wonder when/where they started using it for that meaning ( gtfo )

Anyway.. you are right, with a melee team you want to be able to see your swing timers for all your tunes..BUt based on different reuse timers, cooldowns and such.. its very hard to maximize melee dps boxed. You can still do great numbers though, just takes a lot more work. I love melee in this game though, it takes a lot more skill and training to master a melee in EQ2 than WoW.

With that said, any new teams i make will be tank+ all casters. There are no healers that do "great" dps at range though ( that i know of ). Almost all of them have to convert to melee spec to do respectable dps.