I, for one (actually three accounts), am finding our healing inequity to be more and more frustrating and hence the game less and less fun. End our dependence on clerics for every group so that we can play on our terms and no longer until the cleric has to got to bed. For crying out loud, it is pitiful that two groups can't continue the same camp when one of the two clerics has to leave, even though we have two high level druids (healers) present.

You have acknowledged the problem...FIX IT!

Also, clear that garbage out of your heads that is a problem that clerics often find themselves to be non-essential to groups. There are sixteen classes and three of those are healing classes. Clerics should often feel non-essential to groups, just like everone else.

I am sure you haven't forgotten the reality that you can't be as arrogant as you were three years ago with your customer base. We now have alternatives and I am not exactly a raving fan anymore. Keep us on hold and test our loyalty or show us that we haven't spent three years developing a character into uselessness.

Well said!


Korwyn
The Nameless

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Wyte Psycnosis <Ordo Malleus>
60 Dooid - Rallos Zek

I also have three active accounts and want to voice my opinion.

I think Druids need some help... Give us a straight up 3k heal at 56 for 10sec and 400mana. Place it in game and watch for 2-3 months. If it starts to unbalance the game then adjust but no action is an action. You have no issues with rolling other fixes up that end up needing slight mods... Fix healing and watch and see.

I have not played any of the other games and they would be New and exciting... EQ is frustrating watching and waiting for my choosen class to get much needed upgrades. FIX IT.

My guildchat this morning:

Cleric "wtf I cant get a group all these damn druids are acting like they can heal"
Me "thats only because all the damn clerics are still thinking they are paladins!"

At last a post I can agree with completely and perhaps what we must all do to force Verant of the pot!

Put up or we opt out - its simple. and I don't mean the wimp
approach - 'or i'll change characters' - I mean in fact - 'or I'll change games'. Yes it is a threat of withdrawal completely - however effective one person (also with three currently expiring accounts) can be to the overall customer base.

Please do not over estimate our addiction to this game.

Remember you got to the current base level - one customer at a time! - you can lose them also one customer at a time.

Aawulf,

As an old friend, I understand your pains. I am sure you speak for a majority of Druids, and "Other" priest classes when you mention your grief.

However, once an old old OLD wise druid once told me, it is better to make a statement, and ride the curtails of patience for a response, than it is to react before the general feeling has been voiced.

After reading your posts, I to have to agree, and feel outraged to an extent, that I am not "as happy" with Everquest as I would like to be. More-over, I have not felt compelled to play in a few weeks, because of my disdain for the way Verant and SOE treats its customer base.

At the same time, I also feel that Druids are by no means a broken class. Yes, I do agree we are a bit limited in some instances,but not broken. I agree, we could use better healing capabilities, but at the same time, feel many druids do not think far enough outside the square with their abilities.

Experiencing the difficulties the Druid faces as an End-game player, and as a casual player now, I find that we are more needed than before. In all honesty, I would take more damage power (be it Melee, direct damage, or DoT) over healing any day. I like clerics healing, and am comfortable with them keeping the dominating role in that category. My ideal choice would be a happy medium of the two abilities, healing and damage.

You display your disgust with our "crippled" healing abilities, but what about our damage ability. We used to have the most powerful DoT spells, only second to Necromancers, and we were always sought after for our group spells. It seemed, that our balancing feature, was our ability to benefit groups as a whole, instead of individual players.

Please understand, I know I am in the same boat you are, I am just see the water we travel across a little differently than you do. =)

Jujubead Inkieslayer

You are certainly not in the majority of druids Juju. Please don't muddy the waters so we can try to fix this class. IT IS BROKEN.

Juju - Your the exception when it comes to druids. Most of use feel rather usless at the end game as it stands now.

I for one hope that with this extra time SoE can come up with a few things that can really help Druids in the End Game. I also feel this incomplete heal isn't going to be enuff.

Hear are my suguestions which a lot of others have also listed.

1. Make Potc/g stack with Aego.!! Its only 450HP + Mana.
2. Add a 3k Heal for 400 mana with a casting time of less then 10 seconds.(personaly I would recomend 6-8seconds.)
3. Add two new DoT's 59 and 60. Fire and Insect based.
4. Drop out Epic cast time and duration to 4seconds and 1 min duration.

Those four items would help us with groups/raids but not really up our soloablity.

To you post CloudWeaver, you made some valid points.
Add to No. 3 )Cold DoT

Shut the hell up.

Did it say in the original manual or any expansion manual that druids are healers? No! Ya'll masters of movement.

You shouldn't get an upgraded heal but your going to anyways because the largest group of players in the game are druids. So just wait a little damn longer and you'll have your heal. And then what.. pherhaps a pet? or dual wield?

Oops, sorry. I have deleted my post because usually it's the clerics that come here and to make rude comments. Guess now the mages are here to add their 2cp.

Dont think mages can tank :)

Wow Taref you need to relax and go look at at all the Pet changes you recived over the last few months.

I'm not saying that casters are done being balanced just if you want to rant you should move over to that section.

Also if you have any constructive input on how to make Druids viable in the end game speek up.

Taref, I'd have to look it up, but I believe we are listed as being a priest class (aka healer). Where do you get that we are masters of movement? Shamans get SoW before us (and a group sow w/ attack that doesnt make people sea sick), bards run faster, and Wizards can teleport to planes and do TLs to bind etc. If you want to look at it from that angle druids are the masters of nature, which is pretty much a useless skill in a game where the best drops/exp are indoors

One more item would be to let us DirCharm Animal and Plants up to level 52 since we have such a limited selections of charmable mobs.

hehe Wonder what kinda of mage reation that will get:)

Hey Tarek,

If we are masters of movement then:
Remove J-boot (not just the quest....get rid of them)
Take away wizzy ports
No more gate potions
No more OT hammer

Then you may consider us master of movement again.

Did it say in the original manual or any expansion manual that druids are healers? No! Ya'll masters of movement.


If only we were masters of movement! ROLF. That manual is so old and outdated.

LOL.

This thread is certianly headed downhill fast...

Fairweather Pure

To the person saying we should go the damage route, we have with our nukes. Nukes:D ots. We're still broken on the healing end though. Damage does not get Druids groups nearly as much as healing does. Our soloing is fine btw.

We're the masters of movement? Hmmm, then what the hell did Verant do when they put in jboots, tboots, runspeed3, Nexus, and soon-to-be PoP firepots? If that was our specialty, then Verant owes us more than i thought.

I havent been playing nearly as much as i used to. I'm just sick of logging in trying to find a group, very burnt on soloing, raiding is the one thing i look forward to. I usually end up camping out when i cant find a group and a raid isnt scheduled. The odd thing is, the more i dont play, the less i want to play, heh. Go figure.

Come on guys... most of you if not all of you know better!!!


DONT FEED THE TROLLS!

Adding nukes and DOTs hardly seems equitable as damage is only half the equation and shared by all when healing is the other half the equation and shared by so few (one?).

Lets hear it tools, what you got?

Oh and I quit if any of my heals uses a component.

Please read through my post again Bam102465. I never once said we didn't need help, nor were we a finished trophy of class balance. I mearly brought up a suggestion of patience to an old friend I have known since EverQuest was new to all of us.

It isn't uncommon for us to be in CT maze with Druid,Shaman,Bard,Chanter,Rogue,Warrior.. I couldn't have done that a year ago if CT was like it is now. I guess I am trying to say, we don't "depend" on clerics for single group experience anymore like we used to. And with our regen spells, it makes us a good candidate to duo with a melee class for decent exp.

As for not being in the majority of thinking, I don't understand where you get that from..Does every Druid really think we are "broken" ? Or, does the majority think we need more tuning? If you really think we are a broken class, please make reference to your seperate post on how we are such, and what could they do to fix it, and I will surely read and respond accordingly.


Also, I do agree with you on a few things Cloudweaver, Make our charm, Animal/Plant (One with Nature isn't just a zookeeper) and increase the level to make it useful in more places. Hell, make it have a higher level limit, and increase the chance of being resisted the higher the mob....I could deal with that.

There are lots of changes, I would like to see. Just think we aren't broken without them.

Juju

This is for Tarek the Mage Troll

This is from the original EQ disk manual (Beta phase4 2Feb99)

VI. DRUID - A Druid is the complete master of his domain: the
outdoors. He is a friend to all flora and fauna and due to this,
animals rarely ever attack him unless first attacked by the Druid.
They are Clerical spellcasters whose focus are all things natural,
allowing them to call upon the forces of nature for their aid and
defense. They share some woodland skills with their Ranger brothers,
but are much more limited to their choice of equipment.

Ummm what is that word in there ? Clerical? ...now how did that get there I wonder.
/boggle

Selldor

I know... don't feed the trolls ... sorry

nm

Did it say in the original manual or any expansion manual that druids are healers? No! Ya'll masters of movement.
Hmmm, yeah, don't feed the trolls. But I will shed some light on the disinformation that is blatantly incorrect.

Direct from Sony's website: eqlive.station.sony.com/l...lasses.jsp (http://eqlive.station.sony.com/library/classes.jsp)

Druid
Nature is a druid's ally. Druids are in tune with nature; thus, their magics are nature based, drawing from the spiritual forces of both plants and animals. Whether calling forth roots to entangle an enemy, or using nature's life-giving essence to heal themselves or others, druids are the masters and servants of Nature. The dedication necessary to become a druid is great; druids can only be found among the half elf, halfling, human and wood elf races.

Druids have a love for all animals, but that does not mean all animals love druids. Although a druid will do what he or she can to avoid harming one of nature's beasts, many animals see a druid as just another source of food. This is no reflection of the piety of the druid, mind you, but rather of the simple minds of beasts. Druids, like shamans, have the ability to aid others in many ways, making both desirable members in hunting parties.


No where does it say we are masters of movement, or anything about movement in fact. Wizards, are considerd the masters of movement by Verant. They explicitly stated this when Translocates were put in the game and Druids asked about receiving them. This is why Druids were unable to travel to the moon, or even on the surface of the moon, while wizards had the ability to port to nexus.

I tried to find the link in the developers corner, but when they moved it, they also convienently removed your ability to search though their posts, though not the posts themselves.

Gimli I think quiting if Any of your heals use a component wouldn't be good. After all even Clerics have a component based heal called Death Pact. Granted the spell sucks and never gets cast, but it's not because of the component cost, it's because I've only seen it work once ever. If they made it to where it worked, I'd use it even with the cost of a pearl.

But I agree that no Heal like remedy, CH or Word of Restoration should have a component cost. It would be like telling a wizard they need emeralds to cast Ice Comet. Besides, I complain enough about Cleric component cost, I wouldn't wish it on any one else.

such good ideas, being plagued by the trolls... give back your caster balancing mage boy and then we can talk about who needs an upgrade