I am going to go sigel knight once I hit 85, but I am going to make a subclass/dualclass to level with a two friends of mine who are both going to play mage nuker classes. I think human fighters look excellent in robes, and as such I want to play a robe class, but I am not sure which to pick.
I think the summoner can be good as the pet can tank for us while leveling? However I am worried about the pve (i care more about pve than pvp) dps later on, and I hear that I should switch to heavy armor and bow, which kinda defeats the point of leveling a robe class for me, not that I would mind having a bow.
I am also tempted to go healer, but I am worried that I will have a bad time leveling it, and when I get it to 85 that I will not find parties and at the same time be pretty dependant on parties to do damage. Leveling with two nukers will help, but if they stop playing I am afraid I will get stuck at whatever level that is. I also like playing either healer or tank in parties, so being able to switch between both post 85 sounds pretty neat.
With my siegel knight I am also leveling a shilien elder. This I could use as a healer on the side, but my plan currently is to use a stone of destiny to switch it to an ISS at 85 which could then buff us lower level characters while we are leveling, and it even gets a heal to boot.
I would be most grateful for anything to help me chose between them.
I think normally ever server needs healers and tanks. Half the time when I join a Kartia group all we need is a healer and a tank and we have to sit there for 15 minutes waiting for one...unless we get lucky :). So yes I'd say healer would be more in demand in any server.
Alright, getting more and more sold on healer. Some quick questions though, which healer would be the easiest to solo with in case my friends abandon the game, how painfull are healers to solo level now adays , and should I get a pet (wolf?) to level with me?
Ppl always will tell to you to roll a support class (tanks, isses and healers), because they are always needed in 7-member parties. But what people dont tell you is that a party only need one of them, while DD's classes can be any (othell, tyrr, summoner, yul, feoh), and they have 4 slots in a party. I think that DD's have more chances to join random parties, but obviosly, they will get stuck if they cant find the 3 key classes.
If you only want to level a subclass for skills, don't choose a healer, period.
Healers are only useful in 7-member parties. They have very low dps, so you will have a bad experience if you try to solo. also, In random parties ppl will blame you if the party fail (especially 2-shot-bad geared dds XD). Healer's life is hard if you don't have a costant party.
I think summoners are better for a dual class. They have good dps, can solo very well and ppl like to have one in parties. If you don't find a party with your friends, you can go with a boxed iss and grind in a small party with them :).
I don't think there would be any point in getting a wolf pet just because you will outlevel him very fast with the way the system works nowadays but its up to you really. As to what healer...I think SE and EE's have pretty good nukes that make them okay to solo. I'm not sure about the Bishop.
But yah if you were leveling a class just for the subclass skills then you should go for something that levels fast. On the other hand if you were leveling something that you wanted to be useful then I still think healers once awakened can get parties pretty fast.
All healers have the same nuke, through Inquisitor...
LOL well I haven't played a healer since I left 2 years ago..before they had any nukes. I've just heard people complain that the human healers are harder to level for some reason...though I have no experience myself.
I'm not really sure how good awakened healer buffs are as no one ever uses them. Everyone always has ISS buffs on...its rare that I see someone with healer buffs.
Does that vary from server to server? I am on naia if that matters. I already got warned not to go ISS as main because of overpopulation.
Wish there were more live iss on chronos :(
As a Summoner/Healer myself I can say that both have their positive and negatives. In the end it's really going to come down to your play style. The biggest difference between the two classes you are considering is obviously the amount of damage each class does. I personally went Summoner first and got that class 90+ before making my healer sub. From a soloing standpoint Summoners obviously blow healers out of the water. I can solo pretty much anywhere I want with my Iss following me around. As a healer I can solo with my Lumi but its much slower and not nearly as efficient. Healers are much more party dependent as others here have stated. That being said, I generally don't have to much trouble finding parties on my healer or Summoner. It tends to be a little easier to find parties as a healer than a summoner though simply because they are a needed class for full parties wheres my Summoner can be replaced with any of the other damage classes.
In regards to your question about replacing an Iss with a healer, there really isn't even a comparison there. Iss buffs are far superior, especially if your main is going to be an archer. You want the Sonatas and Harmonies for the damage output they will give you.
As far as gear goes, I personally went with Immortal leather at first before purchasing a full set of Twilight robes. I use the leather for PvE and the robes for AoE nukes and PvP. In regards to weapons, I have an Apoc bow for use in PvE with both my cougars and reapers and a blessed mage blunt weapon with Empower + Magic hold for use with my reapers in PvP and for AoE nuking in places like SoA and Kartia. Since you seem to prefer robes and mage weapons, you could definitely get away with having just mage gear, but you will do more solo/pve damage with your cougars and reapers if you have a leather set and use a bow. (Think Swamp and Fairy Settlement. Those are the places you are probably going to want to solo as a summoner.)
Finally, in regards to leveling your sub from 40 to 85, summoners are going to be easier to level. Pre-awakened summoners are a lot like awakened summoners in that they are at a low risk of dying and can solo just about anywhere they want. Since I am a human mage, I went bishop for my sub and it was a pain in the **** to level. You can get pretty good experience if you consistently do raids, but the dailies are tough if you don't have any damage assistance. Also, from about 65 - 75 there are not many places you can solo with your undead nukes very efficiently. Forest of the Dead is ok but the humanoid mobs make it a frustrating area to solo in. You can also solo in ToI but the lack of mana pots means you will run out of many fairly quickly if you don't have a pet following you around to recharge you all the time. I would suggest that if you do go healer you choose something other than bishop. The heals the bishop gets are better, but the other skills like recharge and VR make other pre-awakened healer classes more viable and useful to people you may be partying with if you dont have an awakened healer following you around.
I hope that this information was helpful. If you have any other question just let me know. :)
I subbed a healer and for pre 85 exp, buy up transform scrolls and get light armor and melee wep. Otherwise as my forum avatar shows, find a good way to hold down your nuke button!