Read somewhere that druids are not exactly a critical class for LDoN crawls.

Like someone said in another post, I wouldn't like to shell out real cash only to be LFG for the longest time.

Can someone help out the druid community on this point?

My opinion from when I was in beta is this...

In normal adventures, there was no problem healing even with the poorly equiped betabuffed druid. In hard adventures, the betabuffed druid did have (alot of) problems though. Also, in hard adventures, you will probably want a second healer, either another druid or a cleric.

Also, paladins are awesome tanks (they will even grow more powerful). Between stuns, heals, rez, buffs, and slay undead, it will be hard to beat a paladin tank.

Just a few of my opinions, not as eloquent as a few other posters. :)

EDIT: I didn't play around with it much. But from what I saw, I did like it. /shurg

Utility really shines in this expansion which will help Druids.

While you don't need to teleport to or from a dungeon, having the ability to evac to the zone in once you are inside the dungeon is definetly a plus. It is much better to evac and run back to where you were than to die and waste time doing a CR.

Getting rezzes won't be as crucial. If you die, it is much more efficient to loot you corpse and just start casting again. Also, your corpse will be ported out of the dungeon as soon as the adventure is over. I'm sure it won't be hard to find a Cleric near one of these corpse heaps.

There are still a lot of people stuck in the mindset that you <em>must</em> have a Cleric to do anything, but I'm sure a group could do perfectly fine with a Druid healer instead.

I think druids wont have a problem getting groups for normal difficulty adventures because of versatility. It might be a different matter for hard difficulty - sony was playing around with how how "hard" that difficulty really was. I guess we'll see when LDON goes live tomorrow, but hard adventures have alot more risk of death and is all about consistent DPS - 2 things we dont help much with. I doubt people will do hard adventures without a cleric, slower, MT, with the other slots left over for high DPS. Well in the end, it depends on how hardcore the difficulty really is which might unfortunately reinforce the need for the holy trinity.

Give me a competent druid over an incompetent cleric any day of the week.

Some parts,like Takish Hiz are full of summoned mobs. You're going to feel like a pallie in Mistmoore there.

Ruk. Hills has plenty of animals. Nuff said.

All of the versatile classes will prosper in LDoN. I think the emphasis is going to be on continued movement and sustained damage capability. This is no time to med, no time to FD pull, no time for typical raid tactics. Important skills will be:

- healing: get as much inate healing ability as possible in a 6 man team (cleric, shaman, druid, pally, necro, beast, etc)
- Crowd control: mez, charms, root parking, etc (chanter, bard, necro, druid, any rooter)
- fast nonstop damage (rogue, mage, necro, beast)
- Slows (duh)
- Thief skills (rogue, bard, and caster with right spells)
- taunt - pally or SK
- inzone evac (druid, wizard)

That is a lot of skills to fit into 6 players. I think that puts a premium veratility. Druids heal, buff, DD, root, evac, and track. Lots of summoned and animals. Necros, another spurned class, also bring a lot to a LDoN group...mana pumps, heals, pet dps, general dps and massive undead ability. Necros will be non-stop DPS machines and keep other casters going. In fact all the pet classes will be force multipliers. Bards, chanters, pallys all will be able to perform multiple roles.

After all those positive comments I want to post some negative aspects ;)

Alot of people forget one thing: in beta, people didn't care about unrezzed deaths, druids were good healers in this scenario...

* Again, clerics will be choice number 1 as healer, druids will only get a healer spot in group if no clerics/paladins around. If you finish a dungeon you still have to wait 30 min for corpse to pop and wait on a cleric to get rez, in that time you could almost complete another dungeon if you had a rezzer.

* Shamans are better as backup healer, quiescense is so low mana and nothing beats their slow.

* Our DPS sucks compared to many other classes, so we don't get groups as nuker too.

* Our versatility is nice, but not nice enough to choose us over other classes.

When we get groups we either fill the last spot (and noone else is around) or we are primary healer cause no cleric is around.

(I'm talking about random pickup groups btw.)

--Zorx

I won't be able to answer to pickup group comments as I don't do those....

But just fyi that I did just fine and dandy in LDON this morning.

Was a group of Druid(me), Warrior, Necro, Shaman, Shaman, Monk. I was primary healer, I was also keeping a group ds up constantly and group regen constantly, I was also nuking to add to dps, and snaring all the mobs, and root parking on the rare occasions when mobs were hitting me instead of the others like they were supposed to.

Versatility is good. I really don't see any problem for druids in LDON from my first impression.

There was a dearth of healers when we went to do LDoN today. I don't think druids who don't mind healing will have ANY problem getting groups.

My experience from beta was that a druid could heal a normal 65 group easily but a cleric would probably be needed for 65 hard. I did several 65 hards after the change to make them actually hard and not easy and only managed one win - and there was another healer in that group. The hard is HARD... mobs hit for 900ish and are almost impossible to single pull. Totally impossible if you want to win due to time constraints.

My guess is that druids who want them will be getting main healing spots at normal level and should be wanted as a backup healer/utility/dps role for hard level.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Was a group of Druid(me), Warrior, Necro, Shaman, Shaman, Monk. I was primary healer[/quote]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There was a dearth of healers when we went to do LDoN today. I don't think druids who don't mind healing will have ANY problem getting groups. [/quote]

That's just the situation i'm afraid of. Does it mean that druids will be playing second fiddle to clerics again? Such that if a cleric is available, no one would even give a second look at a druid for a spot?

It seems that whenever there's a cleric in a group, the others would prefer NOT to have a druid anymore.

Is this pattern emerging in LDoN?

Or will there be times when a group WITH a cleric would say - "hey, we need a snarer, evac'er, ds'er, charm'er, trap-disarmer or back-up healer, so let's get a DRUID!"?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That's just the situation i'm afraid of. Does it mean that druids will be playing second fiddle to clerics again? Such that if a cleric is available, no one would even give a second look at a druid for a spot?[/quote]

You mean, you want druids to be picked ahead of clerics for the healing spot? I don't think that's reasonable. If healers weren't in short supply, then you have to compete with a bunch of folks for the DPS/utility spot. And that is where I think you'll have a tougher time getting a spot.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It seems that whenever there's a cleric in a group, the others would prefer NOT to have a druid anymore.[/quote]

I don't think that is the case. It would've been better in our group today to have had a backup healer. Either 2 druids, or perhaps a druid/cleric or even a druid/shammy. In the hard mode I think you'll have to have a cleric, no question. And you'll probably have to have a backup healer as well as plenty of DPS.

I think druids aren't going to have a hard time finding groups in LDoN.

At least on launch day, there was enough of a shortage of healers that a group with both a cleric and a druid could have been accused of being greedy.

The LDoN group template looks like being:

tank
healer
puller or CC or evac or offtank
DPS x 3

Res, scouting and haste are needed utility.

Druids can do any of those except tank, so I don't think you will be badly off.

soru

Today when I got on, went through the quest. Went to all the sites to see what people were doing. EC camp was most popular. LFG being on meant nothing, even /ooc'd a few times at each camp. In the end I found a few others LFG and started my own group. We ended up Druid, Cleric, Mage, Wizard, Ranger, Sk - which seems like not a bad combo, just no slower. Had a rogue at one point while forming but when he found there wasn't any slower he db'd and went LFG again. We did fail the adventure but by a mere 15 secs.

In the Oasis dungeon, wolves are charmable (pigs and bears not) so a druid can add significant DPS to the group. I was root mezzing because we had no chanter or slower and SotW is your friend on multiple pulls where all the melee classes were tanking.

Dont know about you lot, but I did 3 adventurers last night.

We started with the SK pulling..... 10 mins later I said @#%$ that guys and took over.

Spent the rest of the night pulling the dungeons and DAMN was it fast :P

Tracking, snare pulling with soe up and your laughing.
If you ever worked as a puller in the olde days your going to have fun, its as simple as that.

- nieros

I also think (again if you dont have CC) evac early and often - its not like other dungeons. Nothing respawns so you dont lose time by evaccing and coming back at them. Snare pulling, root pulling, pets, evac, back up heals, DD (we really didnt have time for DOTs although I did debuff a lot)

No, there is no room for druids in LDoN. There is a little notice on the back of the box saying “No druids whatsoever will be allowed to participate in LDoN. We really mean it. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is”.

So probably best not to bother logging in at all and leave more space in groups for clerics.

Some druids may think that they were able to zone in last night and were able to do quite well covering the healing by themselves but this is just a temporary bug and I am sure it will be fixed in a patch shortly.

In fact I felt so sorry for two of our guild druids last night, standing miserable and bedraggled in the rain, that I allowed them to group with me. I know, I know I shouldn’t exploit the bugs that currently allow druids to zone in; but I just didn’t have the heart to leave them there when I could give them the thrill of their little lives and let them see the Lost Dungeons of Norrath before the patch fix excluded them forever.

I have make 2 adventures yesterday.

I have get 2 differents groups.

What tip I can give:

- evac cost less time that ressing et rebuffing (even if it only rebuffing the caster and the caster wait to get the ress after the adventure).

- Test the strengh of your group at the begining, if you need to evac you will need less time to return to the mob.

- The CR are easy, unless you have only know the outdoor and PoP CR. No repop make them easy, just beware the mobs that have killed you. If you can't get your corpse, wait that the 2 hours after you have begun the adventure have finished.

- Try to kill more that 1 mobs at time if you can. Or if you do one at time try to kill no-stop.

- All the mobs in you dongeon will be deep blue.

- The difficulty of a adventure is modified by the level and the number of the players in the group.

- We really need to get our spell that affect the coffer. Nasty traps on them. Make 1 try, if the trap isn't too nasty try to pass it, if not, forget the coffer. (2 mana bar to cure and heal because of 3 tries on a coffer was a bit too much).


I have failled the 2 missions, but I have get the second price the two time by finishing the missions with the 30 mins bonus time.

The 2 groups was in the 60-65 level range.

And it was fun!


Eridalafar

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Nothing respawns so you dont lose time by evaccing and coming back at them.[/quote] Well you do loose the zoning and running back time, and now seeing the size of these dungeons that can be a big hit to your time. Even running back down tunnels that were dead ends could have been what accounted us to fail by 15 secs.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Try to kill more that 1 mobs at time if you can. Or if you do one at time try to kill no-stop.
[/quote] I believe we should have done this whole heartedly, I know we had the power to do it becuase we done it countless time in the dungeon, but we were always too caustious and sitting for too long wondering how to pull the next mob. Pulling with snare was NOT a good idea as it took too long for the mob to come to the tanks (had an SK pulling with Darkness line) and it took for ages for the mob to get to the group. If you have 2 tanks and 2 healers, or even someon with a good pet class (Mage, Necro, BST) always pull 2 and get them to offtank while you take one down, they start working on the other.


1 thing I noticed and shocked us alot was the agro radius was large. Mobs I thought were miles away to help would suddenly turn and pounce on our pulls.


I just can't believe it all came down to a 15 sec lose :( So really it maybe 90 mins, but EVERY SECOND does count.

I did 2 Normal Adventures last night with a pick up group Druid, wizzy, Pally,Shaman,Bard,and Monk. I had no problem with heals only went below 50%m a couple times and was even able to Nuke (moonfire) every other mob. And we where buffed with just group buffs NO cleric buffs.

We had a great time and I also agree that Evac's are a must if no CC.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You mean, you want druids to be picked ahead of clerics for the healing spot? I don't think that's reasonable. [/quote]

Actually I don't mean that, Druids will never replace clerics as healers. What I was wondering was whether or not a druid will also be valuable in a group, even if there is already a cleric in the group.

Apparently, our role and secondary healer and perhaps evac'er could come in handy. Unfortunately, nuking druids don't seem to be a priority for LDoN xp groups.

As we experience LDoN for a few more days, and more people buy and play the expansion with or without a druid, we can have a clearer picture on how desireable a druid would be in a group.

Aside from Geddine who had to form her own group instead of getting an invite, any other druids experience this?

One thing I think you have to keep in mind is, there's always going to be a lot more competition for the DPS slot than there is for the healing/utility slot. You're competing with wizards, mages, rogues, rangers, monks and possibly others. Whereas for the healer spot, there's just clerics and there are never enough of them. And then for the utility slot, you rank right up there pretty high on that.

I can say unequivocably that I felt valued as a member of the group last night with both a cleric and chanter in the group. We even had a mage doing the damage shield and I still felt that I contributed a lot.

In the undead dungeons, I healed more, allowing the cleric to melee and use their undead nukes. I was the primary curer with RC3 and Pureblood. In Miragul's, the mobs needed to be fire debuffed so that the mage's and our fire nukes hit for full. On the hard level, the mobs AC was luclin high so again, our debuffs were needed. On the overpulls, I would evac to save CR time (rather run back for 1 min of downtime than 5-10 mins of CR time).

Sure, any other class can do one or two of these things, but only druids can fill in any missing slot(s). And, all of these things were needed. I think Druids work great in LDoN.

There's all kinds of room for druids. I did just fine as primary healer for five out of six dungeons so far(had a cleric for the other one). Of course I'm set up more as a healer now but any druid should find a niche in LDoN. By the way, SotW and RC really come in handy in these dungeons so even just on those two things druids are valuable, let alone the healing, root/crowd control, nuking, etc. :)

I've been on three LDoN encounters. I was main healer on all three. There were no clerics. Had zero problems getting a group. Only had problems keeping up the one time I didn't have KEI.

Thicket

Destroy Summoned owns in a couple of dungeons. With a mage haste and damage bracer I was putting out some serious DPS. Even if I had a cleric in my group, I was still able to provide significant use to the group.

Im telling you guys they though of class balance in these dungeons.
All five diiffrent themes have potential to be easier with a few clases but with the variety everyone was useful.

I proved to be very useful in miraguls with radiant cure.
In rujarkin hills you need a snarer. Being able to heal when things get tough and then easily switch to high damage per second when things were easy was a huge bonus.
The clerics and chanters i grouped with had trouble switching to 3rd rate damage dealers when needed but im tellin you its essential that everyone contributes.

Druids shine in this expansion nuff said.

Ps. After doing a few adventures i am convinced that the dungeons are balanced somewhat by the classes present.

The one instance i went into when we had two rogues in group had a million traps.
The other dungeons had much fewer with no rogues.
I'm very curious if others are seeing this, cause if its true then i'm taking back everything i ever said bad about sony!

PURE GENIOUS!.

another awsome thing is lol we had a warrior with a pet!!! found a poisoned slave or something, told it to follow us, and it became the warriors pet!!!! was with us for most of the adventure... too cool!!!

woot way to go SoE!!!!!!

Of the eleven missions I've done so far a Druid was the healer in five or six. Druids certainly are just fine for the task but yes, a cleric is still preffered overall I guess from a healing perspective.

Guess what though? I'd still rather take a Druid for even as 'trivial' matters as porting out at the end, tracking and the occasional damage burst during the hunt. If you cranking through a mission in under an hour (hardly difficult with a halfway competant group I'd say) then the transit time is significant, especially in BBM, and the rest is candy.

The "perfect group" for these things is a Paladin(tank + emerg rez), a Druid (healing and perks), an Enchanter (pulling/parking/slowing preferably) and a gaggle of DPS. Round up three wizards if you can or otherwise sprinkle in whatever. Really though, most anything will work at Normal difficulty. If I had the resources I'd love to round up six Necros to hit Mistimore sometime.

cheers,
Celeris
Deceiver

Why not pick a druid for added nuking? You're getting either a primary or back up healer with the package. Also can do crowd control on most of the mobs with root. Snaring also helps too with a fair amount of runners.

oops, double post. sorry =)

I've been to 7 adventures so far, and I've been MH for only 2 of them.

However, out of the 7, I've been invited to a group only once. The other 6 times, I've had to form a group from scratch. It seems that groups don't seem to be on the lookout for druids. (I usually wait 10-15 minutes b4 forming a group).

Is this a common occurence for other druids? I'm talking of pick-up groups and not groups formed by guildies.

I've been on 4 missions with my druid and I've had to make 3 of the groups. This is usually after being LFG for about 15-30 mins. Takes some time to set the group up to.

Today tried different approach to groups, I have all my characters setup for LDoN, and I just have a large LFG /ooc stating all their classes and levels. Within 2 shouts my Paladin had a group. Pity he is not really my main, but I'd rather have a group than be LFG all day.

First time I logged after posting, I got an invite after 7 minutes and did 3 adventures (won 1 lost 2)

Second time, I didn't get invite after 10 minutes and formed own group for 1 adventure (won 1).

Out of 4 adventures, i was healer once only (the first one where I got an invite).

So far, I've found that I do pretty well in LDoN groups.

I've had the best luck in groups with Paladins. They provide the resses and between Marzin, 9's and Brells, we can over HP buffs as well as a cleric. The easiest group I've done was a Paly, SK, BL, Shaman, Rogue and Me healing. If we pulled 3 the Paly, SK and BL would tank one each. If we pulled 4, I would root park one.

I had an interesting group today as well. Not exactly a high DPS group. A paly as the tank, 2 clerics, a shaman, an enchanter (being botted by the paly) and Me. We we went to Ruj to kill 53 mobs. At first it was looking pretty bad. We only managed 6 mobs in the first 15 minutes. I was nuking and dotting, Clerics were meleeing with their procing hammers. It was just too slow. Then we came to one of the Wolves. So, I charmed it. I didn't haste it because it was immune to snare. The Enchanter and shaman kept it tashed and maloed for me. Had two spans where charm lasted it's full length. Clerics Stunned it when charm broke so I could recharm. We finished the mission with 20 mintues to spare.

Just got the expansion the other night. Me 3 LDoN 0. Each adventure I went on had 2 pallies in the group and no clerics or chanters. I hardly ever had to heal. I regen'd, ds'd, nuked, threw in some cures and SoW. Today we had to kill 58 mobs in 90 minutes.... finished the event with 45 minutes to spare.

Spoken as a 64 warrior with a 22 and 3 record.
Druids bring to ldon groups.

In some order of preferance

Evacing
Healing
Tracking
Nuking
Snaring (EC and EF recruit adventures, some mobs run VERY fast)
Rootpark

Tracking is IMPORTANT. Named mobs provide REAL loot. If there isnt a tracker in the group, sometimes, you will just have to give up on scouting for named and pray the map helps you.

Evac is IMPORTANT. Don't let your group down by healing the MT if you have a cleric in your group. This will get all the mobs on you when you should be evacing.

LDON is almost totally open to most group structures. If people dont want you, make a group. If the puller is slow, pull. But i cant think of a SINGLE class that doesnt add something to an LDON group on thier own, and only if there is too much redundancy is it bad. (2 enchanters neither charming, etc).

Give up the inferiority complex, jeez. If a group doesnt want you, make a group.

Finally, those of you who complain about not suceeding on your first tries. Give me a break. It was your first try. I lost my first attempt. Now im in the top 20 of the server. The only non 65 (besides my wife), and the only non uberguild. Its only because my wife and I play good, understand what classes can do, know crowd control concepts. IMO, those who are failing consistantly are not learning from thier mistakes. Not being flexible, not adjusting to the situation and group. Ive grouped with every class in LDON, and no class is useless or doesnt pull thier own wieght, as long as the person driving the char acts as i said above. And im sorry, but SOE cant provide "player ability" balance.

Druids OWN in this expansion and here's why:

So far, with ANY tank on a normal adventure, I've had to heal once every 4 or 5 mobs unless it was unusually tough. That means I've had an insane amount of extra mana. NUKE! Hell, I nuke as frequently as most of our wizzies even as main healer. Without even factoring in utility, this makes druids desirable, especially if someone else is along for emergency rezzes.

You must be taking along a slower Stormfront...

Sure, have had a slower in all of the ones I've done, but not always the best slower. Have had 2 shammies before, have had a chanter, have had a beasty as main slower, have had a bard as slower and CC. All combos worked just fine. A little slow works just as good as the full shammy slow.

Even without slow I suspect I'd still have extra mana.

Stormy

So far I am having a blast.

Mainly guild groups but I was in a few non guild ones. I have only lost one because my phone line was fubar and both my husband and I couldn't get on for 45 min of the adventure :( We felt pretty bad. Very frustrating. Good thing it was a guild group!

I have been the healer in most groups but have also gone with a cleric. Clerics need heals too. Druids and Rangers are inter-changeable as well. I don't think any class dominates this expansion and that is the whole point. I love it.

It has become apparent that druids may be as effective as clerics in ldon, depending mostly on the group makeup, as discussed below.

Oftentimes, especially with a pally or sk in the group, the healer (be it a cleric or druid) does not have to heal all the time. Most of the time, the cleric has time to melee and use the magical hammer, and the druid, the time to nuke, nuke and nuke.

DPS is still the name of the game in timed adventures and druid nukes esp. with SCF/focus/mage bracers. will make a great contribution in addition to the healing of the group members. That's why SOTW is so important for druids in LDoN.

A group with a slow or CC or offtanker makes the role of the healer (cleric or druid) less urgent, with sotw and heal over time spells. (When I say less urgent, I don't mean unnecessary. I just mean that no one is going die because the healer was 1 second late in pressing the heal button).

This is especially true in the kill X mobs and loot X items adventures.

However, in the assasination adventure, a cleric may be at an advantage IF there is a BAD PULL. For instance, the named is pulled with a pet with a mini-named, or 2 other mobs. This is so because named and mini-named usually hit harder than other mobs. If this happens, the superior healing power of a cleric comes into play. Of course, a druid can always evac out of this situation and try again, if there's still enough time.

But if the pull is done correctly, a healing druid will be sufficient.

Other than acting as MH and nooker, a druid can do the other stuff like evac'ing in things go wrong, snaring (esp in Ruj), DS'ing if there's no mage, root pulling, root CC. Oftentimes, casters almost always prefer pot9 over V because of the FT8 component. So far, all chanties and wizzies i've grouped with wanted pot9. If you don't have a cleric, pot9 could still be a viable alternative for tanks.

So all in alll, druids are a pretty strong and versatile class for ldon. Moreover, if you carefully choose the group composition, this could bring out the best in a druid.

I've actually had a much easier time getting groups since LDoN came out. I've played primary healer on probably half the adventures I've done and had no problems really. In fact, the most fun I've had in awhile was the other night doing an assassinate mission in Mistmoore with me, paly, wiz, rogue, ranger, and necro. The first attempt the necro wasn't able to both mez and slow in time, so we evacced and tried again. Ended up having the ranger pull with weaponshield, then add tank the boss pet and add while the paly pulled aggro on the main boss, necro slowed boss and then mezzed the adds. It was great actually having to come up with some strategy instead of the conventional warrior tank, shammy slows, chanter mezzes...blah. Although I'm not sure I would try this with a pick-up group;)

I agree with the druids being just as good as cleric in ldon.. on Sunday I was healer for 4 adventures with 3 wars a ranger and a paly.. didnt lose one and had a great time. Most of my guild asks for healers.. ie clerics/druid/shaman when they are looking for a healer for a adventure. If you dont have a slower your DS gets a good working, and CC is not that hard in most of the dungons.

I've found that druids can usually fill the role of a cleric fairly well in a group. But hey, I'm an alteration druid, maybe I'm biased. :)

Our weakness is in that we have no group heals and we don't get any low aggro heals like a cleric's heal over times. The exception to this is SotW, which I'm finding is a VERY nice AA to have for LDoN, but can only be used once every 20 min. :(

Because of our healing weaknesses, I'm finding it almost essential to have:

1) slower
2) good crowd control
3) good single puller (pacify)

The weird thing is an enchanter fills all three of those roles. I've had success at every adventure when we had a chanter along, and failed every one where we didnt. Coincidence??

In many other cases these roles aren't as important, but I'm finding them essential for ldon, mostly because of the time limit. My husband (rogue) and I have no trouble safely exping in ldon, but to meet the time limit we have to bring a chanter.

Are we just having back luck? Or is there some trick to it I'm missing? Or... do we just have to give up and find a chanter every single time?

Any tips would be appreciated. FYI, we've done most of our hunting in mistmoore. If there's a dungeon better geared to druids, plz let me know. :)

Thanks!

Rosellia

Well, you can charm a wolf in rujark, and you can use Destroy Undead on almost everything in takish.

Nevermind i found my answer in another post thanks.

I think the only place a druid can fall down as a replacement cleric is the old ressing discussion. Yes I know it is an old arguement but it is still valid. Was in my first group as main healer last week, now the group did suffer other problems also but we wiped only a couple of mobs into the dungeon.

Now you may say it is simple to just wait for corpse to pop and res outside, well we were lucky that a member had a bot cleric to res us, the hard part was waiting over 90 minutes for our corpses to get ejected - that is not what I call fun.

Now I have Cleric #1 on my list of looking for members and if not a Paladin comes 2nd. Not for any other ability other than they can res.

I'm not so certain that I'll want to be rezzed in an instance zone while my mission is still in progress. It would mean wasting precious time recovering from rez effects and an empty mana bar.

I have had a druid as the main healer in some groups, and we won everyone of the missions. I agree with the one other person who posted here, the initial thread starter seems to think a druid is useless. Hell why does he/she even play the class. As for those who wait 20/30 minutes for a group, been there done that also, and my main is a 65 Magician with 200+ AAXP points. There is no conspiracy about LFG and being a druid.

I have noticed that a lot of groups are made up of friends, and the rare example is a pickup group. If you have a paladin to res, than hell yes I would use a druid as main healer, and if we had a cleric, I would also still take a druid as they nuke for 1550 same as I do (bolts too unrelibable, and I get a 25% mana saving on my DD nukes), the added fact a druid can fire debuff alone is worth the price of admitance, let alone snare/root/ and evac when the mission is over. Of course if you want the named mob, tracking is invaluable and druids have that. Over all I have not seen a class that I would not want along on a Dungeon crawl, each one has something to offer. Do Mistmoore and a necro brings a ton of capability, do North Ro, and the mage does, do any of them and a druids utility works in them all.

Calebe

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>the initial thread starter seems to think a druid is useless. Hell why does he/she even play the class. As for those who wait 20/30 minutes for a group, been there done that also, and my main is a 65 Magician with 200+ AAXP points. There is no conspiracy about LFG and being a druid.[/quote]

Excuse me, but when I started this thread, it was an honest question. It was posted on September 8 before LDoN was even formally released. The question was to elicit an answer to those who will be playing LDoN the next few days. In case you missed it, here's a portion of the original post:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Read somewhere that druids are not exactly a critical class for LDoN crawls. Like someone said in another post, I wouldn't like to shell out real cash only to be LFG for the longest time. Can someone help out the druid community on this point? [/quote]

I did not post this thread because I thought a Druid was useless. I posted this thread to be a guide to those who was still thinking whether Druids have a role in LDoN as a help in making a decision whether to buy the expansion or not. There is NOTHING in my post to even hint that Druids are useless. It's so easy to criticize others. It's so easy to point fingers at others. It's so easy to call others names. All I wanted was to create a discussion to ASK other druid's opinion on the roles of druids in LDoN. If you're too lazy to read the thread from the start, do not go bashing people and claiming that they said something they did not!

After 1 week of playing LDoN myself. I posted my own conclusions:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It has become apparent that druids may be as effective as clerics in ldon, depending mostly on the group makeup, as discussed below.[/quote]

Obviously my conclusion is that Druids are far from useless in LDoN. Gee!

This discussion is focussed on what you do in LDoN as a druid and not about needless and unfair criticism of other people who want to contribute to this discussion. I don't really care if you play a druid or not, but please respect other posters on these boards.

I find that I am almost always the main healer in groups. As said above... a slower is great. But overall...

And other boards gonna yell at these statements...
A cleric is worthless if you dont need 96 res. We don't. We almost always have a necro and if need be, 93% res us in case.

And 2nd statement.. chanter in the dungeon is worthless for us. Split tank if needed. We toss a shaman AE slow and even I can tank. Hehe..

DPS is king in there... and a cleric and chanter really doesn't add any traditional dps.

I do not deny that their buffs are incredibly nice, which we normally get before zoning in (no hate tells please... I know...)

The ability to take the mobs down FAST means I do not need to heal. Combined with the slowed mobs... damage really isn't a concern for any druid as main healer. Shammy is backup healer, and as long as they heal you, as when you heal clerics and chanters when they are getting beat on, it's all good.

Our normal group tends to be
Ranger, Bard, Necro, Shammy, Wizzy and Druid... Talk about mana regeneration.. If you get your buffs beforehand (c5 mainly), bardsong going AND necro's MW... I heal and nuke easily with mana to spare.

Sea!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm not so certain that I'll want to be rezzed in an instance zone while my mission is still in progress. It would mean wasting precious time recovering from rez effects and an empty mana bar.
[/quote]
Yes exactly. BUt what about after the adventure, I have only once seen a cleric sitting outside a dungeon avaliable to res and that was only because he was about to enter. But the big pain is actually waiting for the dungeon to expire. Even if you succeed you still need to wait 30 minutes, and if you don't succeed and after a wipe your group gives up and splits you have to wait even longer. I've done it and it is not fun at all.

Wouldn't be so bad if there was a command to eject your corpse from the zone early, I really can't see that as an unreasonable request.

I was the healer in a group last night, I did not do all that much healing, we had a great Pally in the group and a great chanter for CC, and I think the Pally group heals mainly took care of all the healing with a few Nature Infusions from me, other than that I nuked to give me something to do, and of course snare, snare, snare (so hard to get used to snaring gain after most POP mobs not running).

When our group is made up of: Paladin, Ranger, Bard, some other dps and/or slower, a druid is more than enough for healing and nuking. We generally don't try the assassin missions without a slow unless we have multiple healers.

When we lack that crowd control, well, our druid gives it a really good go if we get the inevitable 5 mob pulls.

with LDOn, I am healing far more than ever before. When I get groups, I'm almost always teh primary healer. I get groups as a 65 150aa+ druid when the all 65 groups cant find a cleric, or I make a group myself. When I make a gorup, I don't take a cleric, as I focus on dps, so I am always healing more than I am nuking; the only exception beeing when I have a quessiance capable shamy along. I am seriously considering changin my specialization to alteration, and suspect that many ohter druids have already gone, or will shortly go, that route.

I've found my druid to be very effective in LDoN, my last group did not even have a taunt tank, our only melee character was a monk and we did an assassinate adventure.

Group was 2 druids, enchanter, monk, necro and mage. We ripped through an MMC dungeon like a hot knife through butter. No one was ever in any serious danger, we just walked through the dungeon killing everything in our path without having to worry about pulling or splitting or any of that junk. Just run into room, chanter mez the adds that the druids have not parked, kill everything in sight and move on.

My experience has been that druids do just fine in level 65ish groups as main healer, assuming the group has some good classes and variety and is a solid group in general.

But lower than that, its a different story. When I make a group with my 55 Paladin, a druid is the last class I want, they just dont have the healing or dps power at mid/low 50s to contribute much. I'd still take one if it was a friend/guildmate or something like that, of course.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>New Post looks like evoc druids may be a thing of the past[/quote]

You may take our lives but you'll never take our FREEDOM!!!

Evoc druids a thing of the past? Not at all.

About half the time I am a primary healer. The other half, a cleric is the primary healer.

When the cleric is the primary healer, 95% of my mana spent is on nukes. Evoc all the way, baby.

When I am the primary healer, I'd say my mana is split roughly 50/50 between healing and nuking. Yes, when I am the primary healer I am still nuking one or two nukes every mob. I also do a bit of side CC with rooting when needed.

Overall, then, the majority of my mana in LDON is spent on Evoc spells. Accordingly, evocation spec. makes perfect sense.

I'm going to stick with Alteration myself. I nuked all the way up until we started getting healing spells that were worth a damn. I like the role of healer, although I admit I have been enjoying nuking more lately ever since I finally bought SCF3.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>When I am the primary healer, I'd say my mana is split roughly 50/50 between healing and nuking. Yes, when I am the primary healer I am still nuking one or two nukes every mob. I also do a bit of side CC with rooting when needed.[/quote]

Wow, Scirocco is my clone :D (I'm sure he'll see it as me being his clone, but hey)

<em>Wow, Scirocco is my clone (I'm sure he'll see it as me being his clone, but hey)</em>


Actually, you're Tudamorf's clone...;)

Personally, I prefer guild groups rather than pick up groups. Mainly, it is because I know the people I am grouping with. I know that when the doo doo hits the fan I can count on these people to know what their job is. I also group with people from our allied guilds for the same reason. :)

On a similar note, I was wondering if anyone has taken an all druid group through one of these adventures?

Vindler Stormraven
Lvl 61 Hierophant of Tunare
Officer for the Realm of Valor (Arbor)
Mithaniel Marr

I honestly belive that if you keep regen up and have a pally for stuns, or SK with lifetap or a warrior with lifetap weapons, you rarely need to heal at all on slowed mobs. Throw a necro in the group and it's a cake walk.

I've found that I actually use NR in LDoN. Tanks at 70%? Throw an NR on him and he's good for a while.

Racmoor

I was wondering if anyone has taken an all druid group through one of these adventures?

You would need druids who are equipped with Viscid Roots. Not sure how you would handle summoning mini-named though...

Actually, you're Tudamorf's clone...

Can I have the RTFM avatar cawfee cup thingy?

<i>Not sure how you would handle summoning mini-named though</i>


The same way you do now. Just stand right next to them and nuke away. If you really must, then root, snare, and debuff prior to the nukefest.

If they don't summon you, then you aren't nuking hard enough. I look upon summoning as just a way to make sure the mob hits my WoW3...:)

After about a month of playing LDoN, it's quite obvious that nuking druids do very well. I've got SCM3, SF1 (is it sf? the one that adds 2% chance for crits), MP4, Anger of E'ci and soon, ID IV. At 9% crits, that close to 1 crit for every 10 nukes. pretty good for a "healer" (my max without bard song is about 3400k dmg).

A nuking druid adds considerable dps to an ldon group, + he can back-up heal, snare-root CC, evac when necessary, DS (if MA has slots free), regen, sotw, rc, and other stuff. track is not that useful now that maps are proliferating.

All of these makes having a druid in ldon very very desireable.

And.... if ya got SD from a BL, or a mage, or a necro with MW, wow, you could chain nuke non-stop (well, i'm exaggerating, but you all get the picture).

Of course, we can never nuke as hard as wizards (5.5k dmg with crits), but then wizards can't snare-root CC, sotw, back-up heal, etc. So a nuking druid is good to have in a group.

Even when I'm MH, I still nuke (and crit) and its a wonderful thing.

As for pick-up groups, I have been very successful in pick-up groups THAT I PICK-UP. It's seldom that I join an existing pick-up group. There are other posts here which guide you as to what kind of group would be cool to create to maximize the druid's powers in ldon. (Hmmm, there doesn't seem to be any in these uber new boards, maybe I should start one).

One druid ability which I have NEVER used, is the ability to open cursed treasure chests. Anyone ever bother to have a can opener role in ldon? What's it like?