Question about Friar Spec - Phoenix Freeshard

Hi all!
I'm playing with character builder to find a good "hybrid" spec for my friar.

45 Enha
34 Staff
34 Rej

What about it? Can be nice for Solo/Small/8Men?

Tue 12 Feb 2019 3:31 PM by Blitze

If you like meleeing, then I would have 39staff minimum and therefore 39staff, 45 (or47) ench, 25(or24) rejuv.

if you wanna be a solo battlefriar then probably 44staff could be for you.

If your just gonna grp (small or 8man) only. Then your specc is fine but maybe some grps will want higher resist buffs eg 49enhance

Sat 16 Feb 2019 9:29 PM by nixxo87

anyone try 50 staff yet? have a few specs id like to try but havent hit 50 yet.

50s 38e 7r 18parry, high ws,missing red buffs and terrible heals.
38s 47e 25r 7p, higher buffs higher heals, but lower ws.

this drving me crazy

Sat 16 Feb 2019 9:43 PM by Baja255

I'm currently running 39 Staff, 47 Encht, 24 Rejuv, 5 parry. Works pretty good, I can group decently, solo decently, heal almost decently. But I am fairly new to 50 so that might change with more time played.

I'd recommend just picking the first one that catches your eye and going for it. Respecs aren't too hard to obtain.

Sat 16 Feb 2019 10:13 PM by nixxo87

tried 50 staff and went out to hit mobs(not the stupid test dummies), the taunt style at 29 hits harder than the lvl 50 excom style with higher GR so, there goes that idea, so dumb.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 8:55 PM by bootleg

Any suggestion for a player that was planning to solo pve with a friar and rvr on another char?

Didn't want to go heavy on rejuv but didn't realize until post 20+ level that there's no dodger on this server.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 9:49 PM by nixxo87

got rolled by a skald, wasnt even close. Fully temped hitting for 160ish and he was cracking me for 250+

Sun 17 Feb 2019 9:58 PM by Blitze

That doesn’t make sense, friars should hit harder(& faster when haste up) and have significanly better defence than a skald here. Only way a skald should win is with clever play and/or a no purge on friar.

Full buff charges and buffpots are obviously a massive (& unfair in my opp.) advantage to the skald (as it is to any class that isn’t a self buffer)... I am yet to venture into lvl50 RvR, but I will be gutted if I am food for skalds.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 10:05 PM by Hejjin

My current spec is 44 staff, 47 enh, 11 rejuv and 8 parry. I have also tried 44 staff, 45 enh, 16 rejuv and 11 parry. I tried the latter because of the 15 rejuv resurrection and the lvl 16 hot, but that is worthless. The former works well as a pure melee friar build, and has some useful buffs, but the healing is very poor with rejuv being so low.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 10:10 PM by nixxo87

tried 50 staff 38 enhance spec, and the skald had 50% life left.

250+ hammer hits 2 dd's chewed up my 1700 hps quick

Sun 17 Feb 2019 10:11 PM by Hejjin

Blitze wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 9:58 PM
That doesn’t make sense, friars should hit harder(& faster when haste up) and have significanly better defence than a skald here. Only way a skald should win is with clever play and/or a no purge on friar.

Full buff charges and buffpots are obviously a massive (& unfair in my opp.) advantage to the skald (as it is to any class that isn’t a self buffer)... I am yet to venture into lvl50 RvR, but I will be gutted if I am food for skalds.

I believe that skalds also got a buff on here. Certainly skalds are a PITA to 1 v 1 even when purge is not on cooldown. So far the best I have done is taken around 70% of the life of a skald, but when purge is down, then I hardly scratch them.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 10:26 PM by Zansobar

nixxo87 wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 9:49 PM
got rolled by a skald, wasnt even close. Fully temped hitting for 160ish and he was cracking me for 250+

I assume the Skald was crush spec which gets bonus damage against Alb leather, while your staff would be neutral to his armor. Plus everyone is going to be running with self buffs via combo pots if they are running solo in the frontier so that somewhat negates the self buff advantage of the Friar (not completely if you were full enhance).

Mon 18 Feb 2019 5:06 AM by noflex

nixxo87 wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 10:10 PM
tried 50 staff 38 enhance spec, and the skald had 50% life left.

250+ hammer hits 2 dd's chewed up my 1700 hps quick

What speed staff were you using?
Do you have IP/mop/purge?
Your parry is also probably too low
Did you dehaste him on inc?

Mon 18 Feb 2019 10:32 AM by Greenangel

Friar in my view is suppose be support healer with the added bonus of peel .

Your there to heal buff cure and to drop your most important group realm ability static tempest.
Your support healer peeler with Determination.

If you want be hybrid that does damage go two handed pally

Friar should be amazing in group if does job right of support

Mon 18 Feb 2019 11:07 AM by Blitze

Really,

I’ve always had the opposite view to that with the friars I’ve played (on live/classic/uth1/uth2) being very adept at being a DPS hybrid and a great solo char and always able to out DPS paladins (which makes sense as paladins have better peel styles, stuns and way better defence).

with the self buffs and haste my friars would do more melee DPS than any other hybrid (maybe expect reav/champ).

Here I expect buff pots to obviously sway the power towards classes that are balanced without buffs.

As an aside, I do believe friars are underrated in grps and at times could perform well as peeler/healer with ST and RR5.. here the Det and holy staff buff is probably countered by lack of RR5... either way grps have minimal space and they have to sacrifice a lot to take a friar!

Mon 18 Feb 2019 3:21 PM by nixxo87

im probably just going to shelve it or go heal friar, no point in trying to solo on him .

Mon 18 Feb 2019 3:32 PM by Nightwish

I've been grouping on my Friar mostly to get him up in Realm Ranks before I try to solo and not having realm speed consumables also hurt the solo game for a none speed class.

Having said that so far I am having great success on my Friar playing in groups. Especially when the group have two clerics and don't try to pigeon hold the Friar to the second cleric role. I am there for peels, off heals, cure disease, resists, etc. to support the group. At this if the fight is going well I can also assist the melee train or casters. With 39+14 staff I hit decent even on tanks.

I think the key here is to make sure you have a couple staffs at your disposal to rotate and choose from. I generally start the fight with my slowest staff (sidi heal proc one) for both added dmg with wings up and self heals to take pressure off of my healers in case i get hit. I am also running the sidi west for a heal proc and sidi legs for ablative. Once the wings wear off I switch to the dragon staff with 25% celerity proc to start peeling like crazy.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 4:00 PM by nixxo87

yea ill prob just roll heal friar till rr4+ get some rr and sidi staff on my guy and try it then.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 6:10 PM by Jazz_Gen1

How would something like 49 Enh, 39 Staff, 16 Rejuv, 12 Parry work for grp play?

Wed 20 Feb 2019 7:58 AM by dudis

Jazz_Gen1 wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Feb 2019 6:10 PM
How would something like 49 Enh, 39 Staff, 16 Rejuv, 12 Parry work for grp play?

Probably badly as most groups will expect you to play support (33-43 rej). There are stronger melee options than friars.

25 Rej is good enough for solo/smallman or task groups, bit I wouldn't go lower than that.

Somthing like
25 Rej
48 Ehn
34 Staff
rest Parry

Thu 21 Feb 2019 6:46 PM by mhenfhis

As solo Friar, i am running 45 ench 39 staff 16 rej 23 parry.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 10:00 PM by Snorki

Anyone try 45 Enhan, 34 staff, 32 rejuv, 11 parry?

Fri 22 Feb 2019 8:11 AM by dudis

Snorki wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 10:00 PM
Anyone try 45 Enhan, 34 staff, 32 rejuv, 11 parry?

33 rej, 8 parry i hope?

That should work pretty well but I dont like giving up red resists, as this server is so caster-heavy and the most common damage type for mid/hib is cold and heat respectively.

I recommend 48 Enhancement for rvr.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 1:27 PM by Cami

Solo: 7 Re, 45 En, 39 St, 27 Pa
FG Melee: 7 Re, 48 En, 44 St, 7 Pa
FG Healer: 43 Re, 46 En, 18 St, 8 Pa
Small Hybrid: 43 Re, 35 En, 34 St, 10 Pa

I do not see those mediocre blue or yellow heals being useful at all. You either skip Rejuvenation completely or you go all the way to 43 Re.
I do not like 45 En unless you run solo. So for FG, either go 46+ En (recommended) or consider going down to 35 En. Sure, having 15 more Dex and Qui is cool, but more utility in other lines may be worth more.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 1:59 PM by Blitze

I am 45ench 39staff 25rej 12parry
But the 25 juv is too much (HoT is too power hungry) and the specc line doesn’t offer enough even with heal proc and better heals.

I am thinking of trying
45 ench 44staff 16juv and 11parry
Or
45ench 39staff 16juv 23 parry

I am thinking the extra ~6% parry is probably worth the loss of damage & WS from 44staff Vs 39.

Sat 23 Feb 2019 5:33 AM by Physicsx

I'm pretty disappointed after reading these posts. I played a friar up too rr11 10 years ago. I couldn't loose a solo fight. I guess they got nerfed here.

Sat 23 Feb 2019 6:26 AM by Zansobar

Physicsx wrote: ↑
Sat 23 Feb 2019 5:33 AM
I'm pretty disappointed after reading these posts. I played a friar up too rr11 10 years ago. I couldn't loose a solo fight. I guess they got nerfed here.

I think it is that key classes that you would likely face in a solo fight like assassins got buffed more.

Sat 23 Feb 2019 10:21 AM by Zomgasm

I'm surprised at all the talk about Friar's not being great solo, I've been able to beat most everything just fine. I think the hardest things to fight as Friar are Crush Thanes, and SB's that land 2h Perf + Creeping Death. Everything else I would say Friar should be able to solo mostly just fine with the exception of BD (since they troll everything already). Self buffs make it not nearly as expensive per death like other classes as well. I also 8man with the same spec, once groups see you ripping peels and offhealing/cure/rez you'll get good praise. You also have a buffed damage table and can drop stuff fairly quick even on your own. 27s side snare, and also your back snare just make tanks useless if your groupmates respect the snares without overwriting with roots while they waddle around.

I'd say my biggest problem solo is that people don't want to try to fight me a second time and avoid me when my speed is down, or I get 1v3+ to get zerged down. Luckily some people have respected 1v1's when I'm in milegates for other realms chilling. /shoutout to them for not just zerging down, you know who you are.

I use 25rej 45enh 39staff 12parry

Cheers.

Mon 25 Feb 2019 5:38 AM by hellcon

What RA’s? Any recommendations on purchase order/priority?

Tue 5 Mar 2019 6:41 PM by BisbyHoughton

hellcon wrote: ↑
Mon 25 Feb 2019 5:38 AM
What RA’s? Any recommendations on purchase order/priority?

I mostly do small-man stuff, so I more or less focused on important actives off the bat: Purge3, ST1, MCL1, IP1

I'm feeling like I need to invest in some passives at this point. Det definitely is a prirority but what other passives are my fellow friars finding useful?

Wed 3 Apr 2019 7:05 PM by BisbyHoughton

Bump! What passives are all you friars jockeying to knock me further down the leaderboards going for these days? Anybody been playing with Reflex Attack?

Thu 4 Apr 2019 10:31 PM by ggherardi

I usually play in group, I got Det IX, Dex IV, ST 1, Purge 3.

Mon 8 Apr 2019 1:15 PM by Blitze

Solo Friar RR5l7
use Brazen Stout Staff (5.6spd ablative proc)

Passives
reflex5, mopain2, moparry2, LW1, Tireless1, Serenity1, (Augdex2 next)

Actives
purge1
ST1

Specc
39staff, 45ench, 23parry, 16rejuv

I am thinking about swapping to a more offensive specc: 44staff 46ench, 16parry, 8rejuv. And re-templating for a 5.5spd LTprocc staff.

Mon 8 Apr 2019 6:27 PM by BisbyHoughton

Damn you run with Reflex 5? Considering I cant ever seem to catch you on the Friar leaderboards, maybe I should give that a try :p

Mon 8 Apr 2019 7:09 PM by ggherardi

BisbyHoughton wrote: ↑
Mon 8 Apr 2019 6:27 PM
Damn you run with Reflex 5? Considering I cant ever seem to catch you on the Friar leaderboards, maybe I should give that a try :p

Do you solo a lot?

Mon 8 Apr 2019 7:27 PM by BisbyHoughton

Usually small-man rather than solo. 2-4 in a grp most times. That being said though, I often get targeted first when against other smallman grps so I definitely think this could be useful.

Tue 9 Apr 2019 12:18 PM by SlowMo

does a successful Reflex attack have a chance to trigger the grp heal procc?

Tue 9 Apr 2019 12:24 PM by Yokahu

SlowMo wrote: ↑
Tue 9 Apr 2019 12:18 PM
does a successful Reflex attack have a chance to trigger the grp heal procc?

I believe so, but chances are that the stars won’t align. 40% chance to get a reflex attack swing out (assuming RA 4) and on top of that 15% chance for the proc...

Tue 9 Apr 2019 2:04 PM by hellcon

Reflex attack will trigger off of miss, evade, & parry.

It will weapon proc, it will rejuv group heal proc. It can proc both on a single reflex attack. The proc rate is based on the weapon speed (which is one reason why you wan't to be using a 5.6 staff at all times while running reflex attack), such that you will proc quite often off of reflex attacks.

Reflex attack can trigger off any attack (including offhand attack). It has no internal cooldown. Its damage and hit rate are the same as as an unstyled attack. Haste,celerity,quickness does not change the damage produced. (another reason why you wan't to be using a 5.6 staff at all times while running reflex attack).

It is not uncommon for RA5 to account for 50-75% of the damage done by a friar. IMO, it is broken/unbalanced as an ability, but perhaps it is a necessity to make friar's solo viable.

It also works great when you want to farm for 10-20 minutes. Stand in the middle of a pack of blues and go to town (ablative staff proc and heals procs on armor keep you alive). Just be mindful you will be wearing down the condition of your weapon and armor quickly. So all that farm money you make might end up being used to replace your gear :/

Tue 9 Apr 2019 4:23 PM by BisbyHoughton

Damn that is some excellent info. Thank you so much for taking the time to make that post Hellcon.

Tue 23 Apr 2019 9:40 AM by labra

With red end redux, tireless and self chant you don't need long wind to perma sprint.
That's still 1pt spare

Mon 29 Apr 2019 3:38 PM by Specter0451

I am considering this:

34 Staff
49 Enhance
25 Rejuv
12 Parry

Gives you everything from Enhance, a decent amount of Rejuv without going overboard, and fairly low staff, but all the styles needed. It may be something that works better at higher RR when can get to the composite 52 staff. Other option would be to drop Rejuv down to 16 and bump staff up to 39.

Any thoughts?

Mon 29 Apr 2019 6:24 PM by BisbyHoughton

Specter0451 wrote: ↑
Mon 29 Apr 2019 3:38 PM
I am considering this:

34 Staff
49 Enhance
25 Rejuv
12 Parry

Gives you everything from Enhance, a decent amount of Rejuv without going overboard, and fairly low staff, but all the styles needed. It may be something that works better at higher RR when can get to the composite 52 staff. Other option would be to drop Rejuv down to 16 and bump staff up to 39.

Any thoughts?

This is what I run and I enjoy it. I almost exclusively stick with small-man stuff (2-4 ppl in grp). 25 rejuv is probably gonna leave a little to be desired if you are running in a FG most of the time tho.

Sat 4 May 2019 1:06 PM by Xaiv

I have been running 37 enh, 34 staff, 40 rej, 14 parry on mine and have found it works very well solo or grouped.

Sun 5 May 2019 12:01 AM by Cadeg

37 enhance for 40 rejuv : no greater heal just to increase parry and you miss last absorb buff, ( assuming the fact you charge both d/q, AF and s/c ( or buff via cleric ) )

well, as grouped it can work well, not really sure for solo but why not ...

Fri 10 May 2019 2:43 PM by Atum

I guess

48 enh
40 rej
18 staff
8 parry

is for grp rvr only or?

2nd cure ns
red cold resi (mid caster grps)
side snare style

Sat 11 May 2019 2:08 AM by nixxo87

i wonder with the new pots you could prob get away with low enhnce high parry for solo lol

Sat 11 May 2019 5:17 PM by Hejjin

nixxo87 wrote: ↑
Sat 11 May 2019 2:08 AM
i wonder with the new pots you could prob get away with low enhnce high parry for solo lol

Except then you lose out on your self haste, your armour absorb buff, the end reduction buff, the better resists (I always go at least 46 enhance for red Heat resist). It will be aninteresting experiment to try what you suggest ;-)

Sun 12 May 2019 2:52 AM by nixxo87

im still talking about keeping some of that like 30ish enhance and bumping parry up to 30

Sun 12 May 2019 6:29 AM by Drominchen

nixxo87 wrote: ↑
Sat 11 May 2019 2:08 AM
i wonder with the new pots you could prob get away with low enhnce high parry for solo lol

normal 46+ spec with old s/c charge: 130 con 146 dex 86 qui 72 af
old system pot + charge and low spec: 119 con 123 dex and 75 qui/af

normal 46+ spec with new s/c: 105 con 146 dex 86 qui 72 af
new system pot and low spec: 94 con 98 dex 50 qui/af

so all the time when you yould have lost only around 10-20 points you did not consider specing low enh but now when you yould lose around 50 dex and 36 qui points you are thinking about droping enh...

btw self buffed friar is even stronger solo then before now cause of 22 con 63 dex 36 qui 22 af more then peeps without self buffs without sacrificing any RA points. Plus he still can have unfixed reflex attack 5 on top of it.

Sun 12 May 2019 10:56 AM by Atum

are there any high rr friars who play in grp as a 2nd healer or battle friar?

not sure if battle friar would work in e.g. cler cler mins sorc theurg cab arms friar setup though.

for battle friar - 39 staff; and then i would go 48 enh or? imho red cold resists are necessary. rest would be 19 reju and 12 parry.

for heal friar instead of 1 cler, as i mentioned before, i was thinking of 40 reju 48 enh 18 staff

any thoughts?

Sun 12 May 2019 8:29 PM by Hejjin

Atum wrote: ↑
Sun 12 May 2019 10:56 AM
are there any high rr friars who play in grp as a 2nd healer or battle friar?

not sure if battle friar would work in e.g. cler cler mins sorc theurg cab arms friar setup though.

for battle friar - 39 staff; and then i would go 48 enh or? imho red cold resists are necessary. rest would be 19 reju and 12 parry.

for heal friar instead of 1 cler, as i mentioned before, i was thinking of 40 reju 48 enh 18 staff

any thoughts?

I am only RR 6.3, so hardly high, in regards to "battle friar" in a group, then I really believe you need to be at 20 Rejuv for cure nearsight, it drops your parry down to 10, but IMHO it is worth it. It is semi-group friendly staff/enhance spec, i found the cure nearsight very useful on keep takes / defences. It is one of the many specs I have tried and it was viable, but I am not part of a regular 8 man group.