1) All classes can heal if you use a restoration staff.

2) Yes when I played it seemed that or sorcerer is best for range set, just remember you will eventually want to add another type of weapon at lvl 15

3) No you will need to make a new guy

4) They all can work but when I played it seemed sorc seemed to do the best oddly. Also shadow guy is more for stealth melee and not really range so I would avoid that. Just remember once again you will have option to use another weapon at lvl 15 so its good to do both range and melee.

Basically if you want to be all power type guy go with sorc. If you want to also be a healer go with Templar. I feel if you want to do Range/Melee/heals, templar is the best option. If you going to go range/destructive staff go with sorc.

I haven't played a sorc yet but the templar has a lot of ranged skills that reach a loong distance that compliment bow skills nicely. There's a ranged knock back, a dot, and one that reduces armor and increases ure next attack. I didn;t get a chance to see how bowplar would perform in end game , but I had a lot of fun with it in the lower levels.

I play a Sorc Healer and I love it. Class skills (except for Sorc) scale off your stamina. The Restoration Staff and Sorc skills scale off of your magicka. PvE I have one summon, two DoT's and two heals on my bar. My heals can also restore magicka and stamina. In PvP I drop the summon and one DoT to add a Support skill and another heal. Don't forget, at lvl 15 you can add a second weapon slot that comes with it's own skill bar. You can then switch between the two. I like to keep the same skills on each but that will change in time.

Edit for clarification.

Yes templar is only class which can heal using any weapon, as he has heals as separate skill line, not weapon skill. And yes again, quite few skills are HOTs or have HOT component.

Yea im gonna play mine like lotro captain;p Offheal/buff/debuff/offtank/dont care about dps;p Lot of fun for those who like hybrid classes and being able to do few things at same time:)

Fexelea wrote: »

Mortuum wrote: »

Firm, templars can offheal/mainheal, do decent damage, and play support role in group(few group buffs like +dmg for group), create auras to decrease inc dmg. If you want support/offhealer with good ranged, templar will be your best choice.

Played mine in all betas to lvl 34, very happy with it, rolled 1 now as well. If that helps, i have played captain in LOTRO for 6 years, and for me it feels very similar.

Ahaha Cas was saying the same thing about the templar after playing a lotro captain for that long
! Certainly looks like an interesting class. I believe it's the only class that can heal without the staff correct? Seems AOE focused as well.

I played a Captain in Lotro for a long long time. Was by far my favorite class. Templar appears to have the same-ish skill set. Looking forward to playing mine today

Cas

Mortuum wrote: »

Yes same Cas, as said, 6 years hardcore PVE raiding and Ettens. And templar really feels similar, im only missing buffing random/low level players, was always fun...Or giving unwanted buffs to those who annoyed us ;p

Whats actually is different, is the fact that templar has very nice DPS, so no more 10 min fights with 1 mob hehe. Have fun with your holy knight mate !

Focus buff FTW!

Cas

Focus had it official name changed to ''Look what have you done nuubcake, leaf of shame'' on our server;p...

Wondering how many ex-captains are templars now, i know about 9 and thats only my server/alliance/kin. All very happy now as well, found what they issed so much, same as i did.

Glad we could help Firm, have fun with templar