I have just start my friar and he is already 20. Is a rej friar good. So far my heals can take a pally from 20% to 85% with my big heal. I am really enjoying it. Is it playable in rvr and how about group raids. If so what spec should I go or should i just play him has a staff. Looking for good feed back. First alb character.
From what I've seen, there are two main load-outs for friars: Rejuv or Fighting or a hybrid of both (master of neither). In either configuration, you will want to spec pretty deeply into Enhance since that is where your Personal Buffs and Group Resists are.
If you go Rejuv, you still won't have the healing output of a cleric with their Single-Target and Group Insta-Heals and Spread-Heals, but you will have the Friar-exclusive Heal-Over-Time which is very good in non-burst situations (i.e. better in PvE than PvP). If you go fighting, just amp up your staff for maximum damage and you are set for hunting 'sins or peeling if you are in a group. My friar is a hybrid with Rejuv being about 1/3 higher than Staff, but she still has tons of healing and buffing utility, as well as doing a passable job of killing sneaks in DF.
Whichever you choose, don't get discouraged if you get passed over for a cleric: they just have better healing tools than a friar. Also, when advertising for a group, let them know what you are specced for and what you would like to do. Most times when I was invited to a PUG it was to heal, so in those cases, the staff only got swung if things went truly pear-shaped. If you are playing backup for a cleric, you can let them know you want to mix it up a bit. In that case, throw out your HoT and jump into the fracas!
It's hard to screw up a friar too badly, so spec your friar to your own play-style. If you find yourself wishing you could heal better and rarely swing the wood, you might roll a cleric and get a feel for how they play. Personally, even though I prefer the healing game, I play my friar a lot more these days simply because she has better self-defense capabilities and isn't an easy RP donor if I run into a baddie.
Thank you for that feed back. What would a hybrid spec look like? Sounds fun for we to play i like to be able to solo as needed but would like to have group game. When do you get the friar hot also? Also do friar stills get a spec haste or is that only on the live servers. I haven't gotten on yet so i would presume that is a no the theurg gets it. I would much prefer the friar i like the play style they have and are capable of doing. Friar has always been one of my favorite classes just trying to figure out the way I want to go with this one. I know I can respec freely just want to play the spec I want as I level so i can see if i like it or need to switch it up.
My spec is 40r 46e 25s 1p. I'm not sure that it is an "official" hybrid, but it feels like one to me. If you are interested in playing the what-if game, head over to the character planner and have some fun!
You do get a combat haste buff, but it only has a 30s duration. Long enough to finish a single fight. The lowest level HoT comes in @ level 24, so you will have a little ways to go to get that.
Hi again! I'm probably not a great resource for which RAs to take as I didn't really build for RvR, but I took Tireless and Longwind so I can perma-sprint without needing pots. The rest of my points I've dumped into Purge and Reflex Attack (prolly not recommended since the nerf) so I stand a better chance against sneaks in DF. Once I'm done there, I've thought about Determination, Aug Dex, IP, and ST for when I feel like running with the zerg.
I'm sure someone with better insight and more experience will chime in with better advice for you, though!
imo rejfriars are pretty derpy in rvr and require a group(and especially a clericpartner) who are used to playing with one. i personally would stay away from rej-friars and use the heals as a backup when clerics are under pressure and/or you are rooted away from the fight for a bit.
heres a melee focused hybrid build: 39 staff - decent dmg and application, side- AND backsnare(!) 25 rej - ok backup heals - baseheals should pump out more healage than your major but test that to see for yourself, emergency NS cure, blue hot to precast, 45 delve healproc 46 enh - good selfbuffs, red heat resist which will reduce the "aftershock" dramatically if you happen to survive the hib assistnuke through the debuff 8 parry - a bit low...but good value.
sadly, you cannot go for 33 or even 40 rej without making a huge sacrifice in the other 2 lines. the backsnare is pretty big and i would always spec for it. same story with the red heat resist buff.
if you plan on RVRing id always take ST I. its pretty much the only thing a friar can do thats "flashy" and potentially forces more than 1 opponent to react. i consider the fact that friars can get det here to be pretty valuable......so i personally would go.. tire, lw, mcl I, purge II, ST I before going straight for DET9
that said.....as romulus stated before, the friar is an extremely flexible class which can serve many purposes and its usefulness for a group is mainly decided by the player behind the steering wheel. so get to 50, dont be afraid to test different specs in different scenarios and check out for yourself what suits your style best.
Awesome I am going to stick with the friar always been one of my favorites, Just sounds like it is based all of your playstyle. I'm guessing the hot is precast only can't cast during a fight with your staff out or while getting hit like in live.
Thank you guys for all your feed back has defiantly helped with my decisions. Just have a lot of playing around to do.
New here but I have ALOT of Friar experience. I played a Friar when we were 1.0 spec, had no self spec buffs in enhance, and one of the weakest classes in the game. When we got buffed to having self buffs and 1.5spec but this is just about as SI started to come out, and the class went unlooked at for years. Buffbots and max cap buffs really hurt the Friar, most hybrids gain a useful stat from leveling, the friar does not. Its most useful stat from lvl'ing is Con, which is 2ndry and we get Str which does nothing for them (mythic thought staff was str based when we first launched). The group ability of Friars has always been poor because they don't bring much to a group that other classes in Alb don't already bring, and those classes bring in more utility. The only group buffs (outside of heals) is 3 resist in a line that friars have to spec-heavy into. A enhance/rejuvy Friar still doesn't provide much more utility than a more melee-focused spec which is the problem with friars. They lack group utility to be considered over other classes. The rear snare addition here is nice addition, but do you give up a good spot in a group to a class that gets a rear snare for peeling when they already had FF which did the same thing (perma run and FF was easy to land and obtain)
It is your character though, you spec how you want to play. But if healing is what you want to do, most groups will replace you with a cleric if they had the chance. Clerics have the tools to respond to group-wide damage and burst damage received, the Friar can only focus on 1 character receiving damage.
Someone also talked about baseline heals, baseline heals w/o rejuvy spec have such variance and high power usage, using lvl 18 spec heal will on average heal better overtime and better use of power. The lvl 25 heal will outperform baseline heals. Most Friar specs I ran stopped @ 18 rejuvy for the spec heal. The lvl 50 style was difficult to use (off parry) and didn't provide anything useful by using that style. I ran a 50s/38e spec on Mord and Classic, but that was just a melee setup that I played to have fun
