Eat mah Scourge and DIIEE!

First of all, a heartfelt thank you to all you ppl out there that noticed my meager atempts at entertaining the WAR community. I've gotten teary-eyed at seeing my weak-ass banner over at Blurring Shock (I don't know the first thing about Paint Shop, I'll admit it now), I giggled at the mention of me over at Werit's and Grimnir even twitted about me! I love you guys. Oh and, btw Mr. Mann (dude, your first name should totally be Sirius), the Magus healing tree would be Havoc as it has the Changer's Blessing tactic. So there!

So, I went back to Norn. I'm a destro child, after all and I missed being the underdog. I gave the donkeyspeak (that's what I call her because that's what Ehone sounds like. Thank you, GOA, for renaming my character after a freaky animal sound) another try because, after all, she is my main. After 50 rrs, I felt kinda bad that all the action it saw lately was as a crafting mule (donkeys again...).

Here I go, all hyped up about being awesome and healing lots and then on the first scenario I go like "Whaaaa...?" and heal around 200k. Meager. "Maybe," I thought, "I just need to spec out of this AoE tree. Everyone says the single-target one is the shizzle." So there I go, spend half my money, spend five minutes rearranging my tactic/actionbar and queue up again. Up comes Serpent's Passage and I go in all gung-ho, flinging my knife up in the air like there's no tomorrow and "Whaaaaaaaa...???" Some 150k this time.

"Fuck this" I said, and about time I did too. I don't know, maybe the AM ruined me for Zealot, with it being so full of AP and having just a single tree to spec healing in. Maybe playing Order for so long ruined me for my destro mateys. So, "fuck this", I said and promptly added "I'm gonna spec DPS."

This might seem like an odd choice but it's not the first time I've made it. I rolled another zelly (the Donkeywrath, in honour of his older sister) and invested solely on intelligence and toughness gear and talis. First two tiers it was the foshizzle to the tizzle wizzle. I could solo the moon, if the moon happened to be the same rank as me and totally not expecting me to fight back, and always ranked in the top 5 dmg dealers. Healing was subpar as I usually only managed to dish out around 20k per SC.

So then what happened? Then the hate happened. Of course, I was totally expecting to get some flaming and nerdraged a lot because if other healers are slandered for dpsing, a Zealot gets farted in the face. That zealot must have my longest ignore list ever. But it got to a point where I just wasn't having enough fun with it to continue. When you get another zealot bitching in /sc about how "you're doing it wrong" and laughing at your scourge when he's only outhealing you for 5k and you're outdpsing the **** for about 25k, it makes you think "what's the point?". So that one went on the shelf at rk26.

As I had recently read a post on the official forums about a possible build for a dps zealot but couldn't apply it because you needed some 50 rrs, I grinned at the prospect of finally shedding my "SuperHealer" shell and doning a "lookatmeI'mtryingtokillstuffLOLZ" awesomesuit. I nerfed my healing, buffed my damage, had the harbringer do its thing and had the ritual throbbing in all its manly vigor.

How was it? Meh. It was a change that's for sure. Of course, I was wearing half Sentinel gear, seeing as I have salvaged all my Conq/Inv gear, so I'm now neither a good specimen of a healing nor of a dps zealot. I'm there, I smite and I'm mediocre.

Think I might have borked my Zealot skills for good with this one. Fret not, though! I still have a Magus to ding but that, dear gent and ladies, is a story for another day.

The End of Effectiveness

So after Mike went to have dinner with his parents I joined Nirvaesh, the bossman back on Norn. It's been a while since I played a Zealot, let alone a high-tier one. It seems that, during the time I was on Azgal lots of healers have been making themselves purty. Although I didn't see the likes of Ukyo and Ultelot (the TRAITOR!) seems some other phAt healers have gotten all geared up in their Darkpromise and Warlord and Tyrant and are healing the crap out of everything that runs, chops and gets blown away.

I kept getting the feeling that I was doing something wrong, that something wasn't quite right. Part of it might have been because I'm now accustomed to having AP whenever i need it. With Drain Magic and the Master of Tranquility and Wild Healing tactics slotted, I've got all the AP I need to spam Blessing of Isha and Lambent Aura outside of the party. If someone sees me, I slap on a PB Mistress of the Marsh, hide in a bush (so that other dessies don't notice me... except for the flashy Christmas lights) and use the ever useful Walk Between Worlds so I dont get setback. It's usually enough to make any mdps give up on me. They run out of AP and I'm not dying anytime soon.

So what was I doing wrong with Ehone? I remember back in the day, before they nerfed the AOE heal radius I could get 300k+ healing in a SC easily. And that was before all the Sentinel gear. Still, I stuck with my AOE/HoT build and prayed we got decent healers on other parties so I didn't have to worry so much. I decided on this mostly because my Dust of Pandemonium healed the same (or maybe slightly more) than my Elixir of Dark Blessings, going all the way up the AOE tree. But it now seems that the AP cost difference is starting to take its toll.

Of course, some scenarios are easier to test builds than others. Reikland Factory for instance (loathe) has me running around like a headless chicken between capture points merely throwing HoTs around hoping they hit something useful that'll get hit in the next 15 seconds or so. So I didn't get all the feedback I wanted from my respec into the single-target tree.

That's another thing I'm not used to. With the AM I can just spec for healing. I mean, that's what I want to do. With the Zealot, I gotta decide on what type of healing I want to focus on. I spend less points on the trees because I'm not interested in the damage abilities/tactics but my points are spread thinner. I find my brain often fritzing and I just stand there wondering if I should be spending my few remaining AP points pocketing that one WE or casting a DoP to heal a party that is only under 75% hp in total.

And then I die. Which is another thing. At rk 32 I don't just die with the AM against a WE or a Choppa. I die, but I get a few steps to prolong the inevitable. With the Zealot I see a flying WL and I don't get half a second of cast time in before I'm slain by the muddy boots of a cat breeding elf. I know Order is OP. I' playing it. But with all the wounds and toughness I've put into a rk40 Zealot you'd think that I'd be more like a piece of cheap wood and less like hot pudding.
 /endrant