From what I remember of the PoM class, it was rather over powered. I haven't played in a while, so they may have patched him up, but from what I remember it was just stupid how powerful he was. I remember there was this PoM that kept killing me every time I went to do a quest, even the times when I got the drop on him (I was a Barbarian).. That happened about 4 times before I realized that there's no way I'm going to kill him like this. Firstly, it seems more than a little odd to me, that a Rogue class can get the drop on a Priest that is only a single level higher than him, and not even come close to killing him. So I got 2 of my friends to come with me, and I figured that we were going to get him back (A Guardian [tempest] 2 levels lower than the Priest, and an Assassin [corruption] the same level as the Priest). Well, both me and the assassin got our sneak attacks on the priest, and our guardian was really laying into him. He killed the assassin, and brought me down to ~15% health before we killed him. The reason he was so hard to kill, was because every time we got him close to dying, he would fully heal. We had to kill him 7 times essentially.
It just seems kinda stupid to me, that both AoC and WAR feel that healers need to be able to stand their ground like that in a fight. Don't get me wrong, a priest shouldn't get creamed every time he gets into a fight, but everyone has their role to play. If someone gets killed by rogues a lot, then that's just part of the job. If an Assassin can't take on a Guardian in a one on one fight, well that's just what makes the game fun. Priests and Mages don't need all those counter measures against those kinds of fights. Rogue's kill squishies, it's their job. Fighters kill Rogues, and casters kill fighters. Everyone should stand some chance, but in the end, the worst thing you can do to a game is take the challenge out of it. Because then it's just laundry.

There has to be a balance where healers are not always the first choice to dps down. healers need great defenses to make that happen. Otherwise, you end up in a game without healers which so far has not worked.

Originally posted by catlana

There has to be a balance where healers are not always the first choice to dps down. healers need great defenses to make that happen. Otherwise, you end up in a game without healers which so far has not worked.

That's not going to happen. Healers are always going to be the first choice to take down followed by mages because that's what is going to give you the greatest advantage. The only way to change that would be to make healers really under powered so no one worried about them till the end. The healers have some really good crowd control with the tos and pom and the bear shaman does have high survivability.  Ultimately though in aoc it's up to the healer to learn how to move and heal and when to use his cc effectively and his teammates using their crowd control and acting as a shield for him. There is a particular pom on my server that is absolutely horrid to take down, especially when he's playing with his friends. He uses the terrain and his teammates to keep his space and has enough magic mitigation to fend of spell casters for a bit. It's really an art to watch him bouncing around rocks and hiding behind trees or players while healing and certainly something I've been unable to match on my tos.  Really if you're dieing a lot as a priest it's either your or your teammates fault. Teamwork is key and a good team will protect their healer while instead of using their stuns to chase down a person and just get that one last kill.