okay, so once i hit 60 on my slayer i am going to try either mystic or priest. which one is good in PvP. which gets groups easily. i understand the difference in damage, ones is DoT one is more so "burst", so to speak, i can deal with either. In Aion i was a SM and am a bit worried mystic is to much like it. not that i don't like that class archtype, i loved my SM, but i hate playing the same class every game, i always try something new. so, who has some logical pro's and con's of both?

Note: i have read some guides, but the guides lack personal opinion, which is what i *shutter* want from yall.

I haven't played either but I personally prefer a priest in almost every situation.

There are a handful of dungeons where Mystics help a lot (DPS races primarily), but Priests raw healing power is just too good in PvP or tough instances/hard modes.

For grouping up until the crit buff I prefer priests 100%. After mystics get their crit buff I think it balances out who has what to offer.

I played aion and played a SM to 55, mystic is nothing like it. Mystic pets are absolutely useless and since mystics only have one dot you find yourself forced to either kill exceptionally slowly, albeit very safely, or get in there and start nuking with metamorphic blast and the like.

I personally think the Priest is best. Everytime I pug with a mystic that runs up to buff the group and gets killed I just find myself wishing we had a priest with 15 minute buffs. And everytime I get a cautious mystic who doesn't buff I feel like our group is losing a ton of dps.

Also I find the priest has more interesting things to do during a fight. Their cure is bigger and hits more targets, they can stand people up instantly who get knocked down. As for pvp, I personally like the mystics mobility, but I like the priests combat arsenal and self heals more. Toss up I would say... That part really comes down to your preference.

In dungeons a good Priest properly played and glyphed can bring almost as much extra damage via buffs and mana regen to the group as a Mystic (as much as you will need anyway), while providing better cleansing, the ability to stand up the group from knockdowns, make them immune to knockdowns with a shield that also protects against damage, superior healing, long term offensive and defensive buffs including a Power buff equal to the Mystics that stacks with our other Power/Attack speed buff, a long term HoT buff that with gear is superior to the Mystic totem, an Endurance buff that your tanks will love, etc.

In PvP their big heals really stand out and make your group hard to kill, the big AoE cleanse in PvP is great, our debuff/melee CD slow is a 4 target 18m range lock on whereas the Mystic has two separate skills for that, one of which is only an 8m radius around the Mystic so that sucks. We have our stand up skill and our shield. We also have two backsteps that take us farther back than their Archer/Sorc equivalents and in the hands of a skilled Priest make us very slippery. On top of that mobility we have two shields (one protects against any damage for 15k of it and gives us knockdown/immobility immunity, the other reduces ranged damage and increases our resistances to stuns, sleeps, slows, DoTs, etc.). We also have a great self heal on a short CD that at my gear level heals for 27k HP and we have our 5min CD Divine Respite which at my current gear level heals for 9850 HP every second for 10 seconds....

So yea, Priest all around. Mystic is great in specific circumstances IMO. In a dungeon group that knows what they're doing and doesn't need babysitting, Mystic shines because they're free to support instead of spam heal (and IMO it's not hard to pop in and use that Power buff, just need to know the bosses moves - Priests have to run in to use certain heals/cleanse on melee so you just need to pay attention). In PvP with a bunch of ranged that really benefits from their buffs, they're great - but IMO I'd prefer that group be backed up by a Priest. Mystic is great for buffs, CC, mana/crit aura, and backup healing in PvP. But I would still want a Priest around for the burst to serve in that main healer role.

mystic for individual parties or less, scales better with gear and experience, fast dungeon runs
priest for zerg GvG, higher level dungeons, higher error tolerance, more defense contribution
if you want to solo level as a mystic you're gonna have a bad time

Quote: Rengeki on 06/08/2012, 08:55 AM - view

I have to disagree on a few things. Priest is great in individual parties or less, I might even say better than a Mystic because we can provide all the support that's already been mentioned while keeping up the group a lot better than a Mystic would. In large GvGs a Priest is relegated to just AoE and burst heals and don't have as much of a chance to use all of our other support skills that we have. Mystic shines a lot better when a Priest is around because the Mystic doesn't have to heal as much - they are free to CC, buff/debuff, etc instead of trying to main heal with the little heal they have. Priest also scales far better with gear than a Mystic does (that sentence is fact and not opinion). If by higher error tolerance you mean a good Priest can carry bad groups than to an extent yes. Rest I might agree with. But explain the reasons for the above so maybe people will understand where your opinion is coming from.

Theory crafting i see Mystics have some I-Win buttons with mass fear/snare/sleep/stun, making me lean towards Mystic.

However after researching, I realize PvP gear and zyrks/enchants could grant 50+% PvP dmg mitigation. Adding the crystals that mitigate 38%dmg when below half health, things wont be dying quick.

So in this scenario, a priest could come on top by being able to heal themselves reliably.
CC could become just little annoyances if people just wont die during the cc timers.

Im so undecided, pls help.

I am playing both a Mystic and a Priest.

I haven't done an indepth analysis to figure out which is best for the group or which does the best dps. I simply play to have fun.

In general I prefer playing my Mystic because I find the class to be more interesting and fun. However, my Priest is steadier and more forgiving in situations with bad groups and therefore less stressful. So my advice would to just pick one or the other and don't worry so much. You can always switch to the other class someday if it doesn't work out for you or if you get bored with the one you picked at first.

Honestly, this is just from me playing the prologue ( I played a priest in Closed beta to Open )

I played both Mystic and Priest ( along with a few other classes ) In the prologue because it makes you level 20 and gives you something to look foreward to.

but anyways this is just from my view along of what happened during those 10mins of it.

Mystic Pets are useless. The protector did absolutely nothing but stand behind and look at my butt. The fairy was nice although, the wraith did nothing as well.
Sharons Bolt seems to do more damage then the priest version. They dont have very many attack spells that are ranged so it makes you get up close to fight. The healing spell it had was actually nice, i think i like it better then priests focus heal. I felt though that i needed to rely to much on what other people were doing for me with the NPCs fighting. I might level one up for the heck of it to get a better idea. This is just from that 10 mins of playing a level 20 Mystic.

I enjoy my priest alot more , was soloing Basilisks at 19, during beta had no stamina after but still :P

After hitting 60 on both classes, and doing Gvgs/small and large scale pvp, and hard modes FoK/BT i have to say i have more fun doing all that on my mystic especially pvp cause of the ability to purge people of pvp pots =)