I just want to share some thoughts with those of all classes who are involved or interested in the recent threads concerning class improvements/modifications.

I’ve been following the ‘tangled web’ thread (in the unkempt druids section) but don’t really feel qualified to add much as I’m not in GoD and am quite happy with my heals at the moment. However, from reading it I feel that there are some things people should consider before suggesting changes to their own and others classes - because the problems are difficult, as is keeping everyone happy, perhaps the solutions are as well.

I want to outline 3 types of change you can make to the game.

1) Changes to a specific class. E.g. modifying class specific spells/abilities/discs or the ability of a certain class to mitigate damage.
2) Changes to game mechanics (affecting multiple classes, all zones). E.g. shared damage tables, mob resist mechanics, priest damage mitigation, xp split in groups.
3) Environmental changes. This is by far the most complicated because it defines our experience of the game and alters how we measure our own effectiveness. These can affect a single class (modify the availability rate on a rogue only weapon), or affect everyone (change the way an encounter works, or the attack rating and hit points of mobs). Zone design, graveyards etc…

What I’m getting at is that I think people go straight for type 1, changing a specific class, before even thinking about 2 or 3. I’m pretty sure that the devs are as amenable to suggestions on content design as they are to class design (just how amenable that is I’m not sure :) ). Because genuinley objective, constructive posts on improving PvE are few and far between.

I won't hide the fact that I'm against the school of thought which suggests that "sharing class specific abilities with other classes helps balance the game". I think those people mean that "sharing class specific abilities with other classes helps balance classes" - of course it does! But it only by blurring the lines between the classes more and more, and I see it as a cop out to addressing any real issue. The problem that druids and hybrids have in suggesting change, is that a lot of what they are was always a part of other classes – so it is nearly always seen as an infringement on another class to suggest an improvement, even to a core ability such as healing.

For example; I’d like to see plate armor affect damage mitigation to a higher degree compared to leather and silk. It just seems wrong that a cleric in plate goes down almost exactly as fast as a druid in leather with similar level equipment on because the 150 extra ac afforded by the plate just doesn’t cut it. Especially considering the ability to wear plate was and is used by the makers as a selling point for being a cleric (see link below). Who knows, maybe that could even help pallies tank GoD. On the other hand, I don’t see why clerics should be able to nuke like a druid, as one hopeful healer has suggested.

So I went and read this (http://eqlive.station.sony.com/library/classes.jsp) again to remind me why I picked my class. I last read it back in 99. I think every class should re-read it and try to realise the difference between asking for modifications to something you are supposed to be able to do, and asking for something you were never intended to have. Ok, they are very general descriptions and the game has changed a lot since they were written, but surely there lye the reasons for choosing your class – those are the things you were supposed to be happy with having. Aren’t those the designs we should be working on and trying to flesh out – the core of our classes.

Anyway, I hope this aids other peoples ideas some, it's just my opinion and nothing to get worked up about. I’d be happy to hear others thoughts - particularly if they mind trading in class uniqueness for group desireability. Bit of a tough subject that I've only really scratched the surface of. :wavey:

So I went and read this again to remind me why I picked my class. I last read it back in 99.

That's probably when the developers last read it too, and they were a different generation of developers than the ones on the current dev team. I don't think it's fair to expect players to base their balance and improvement requests upon false and misleading class descriptions.

Take this shining example:
"[Druids have] a selection of disease and swarm spells that damage their enemies over time..."

--Not a single spell in our book is disease based.

And how about this one:
"Druids are a well-rounded class, prospering in both solo and grouped situations. An experienced druid is able to adventure alone, but is equally at home in a group."

-- Yes, the druid was originally balanced around its ability to solo; however, over the past few years the game has imposed increasing number of penalties on nearly all the methods by which we can possibly solo. More 'normal' (unnamed) mobs are totally immune to snare/root, more 'normal' mobs can summon, and charm has been nerfed in various ways. Why advertise soloing as a class feature if they're going to penalize players for doing it and repeatedly nerf/restrict spell lines which have little or no purpose outside of soloing?


It just seems wrong that a cleric in plate goes down almost exactly as fast as a druid in leather with similar level equipment on because the 150 extra ac afforded by the plate just doesn’t cut it. Especially considering the ability to wear plate was and is used by the makers as a selling point for being a cleric (see link below).

/DAYDREAM
Yeah, and if it's a scimitar or a blunt weapon or leather, druids should be able to equip it.
/DAYDREAM OFF

("Druids are primarily a magic-using class, with the ability to wear leather armor and wield blunt weapons and scimitars.")

Honestly, I don't think we can refer to anything stated in those antiquated class descriptions as "selling points"... Verant was trying to sell a game, not a class. And considering how poorly that game has adhered to those descriptions, I have a hard time believing that developers refer to them at all, even for conceptual decisions.

Requests for class improvements need to be made in the scope of how the game, and each class, exists today.

~Firemynd

What I’m getting at is that I think people go straight for type 1, changing a specific class, before even thinking about 2 or 3. I’m pretty sure that the devs are as amenable to suggestions on content design as they are to class design (just how amenable that is I’m not sure :) ). Because genuinley objective, constructive posts on improving PvE are few and far between.

General changes to EQ are actually far more unbalancing and potentially game breaking than simply making a change to a single class. Just ask monks how well the new melee system has worked out for them.

I won't hide the fact that I'm against the school of thought which suggests that "sharing class specific abilities with other classes helps balance the game". I think those people mean that "sharing class specific abilities with other classes helps balance classes" - of course it does! But it only by blurring the lines between the classes more and more, and I see it as a cop out to addressing any real issue. The problem that druids and hybrids have in suggesting change, is that a lot of what they are was always a part of other classes – so it is nearly always seen as an infringement on another class to suggest an improvement, even to a core ability such as healing.

I'm glad to hear it. Will you give back run3/5 now please? Or PoK stones? Or your idols and those invis devices? How about your self mana spells? All those are things druids or other class could do/use long before clerics got them and simply diluted what those classes could do.

Of course, none of those are anything more than convience things and most druids I know are glad clerics and paladins can use most of them since it lowers the hassle on them. But you still cant say that druids are the only ones who benefit from diluting classes. In fact, we're the ones generally on the other end.

Oh yeah, and if we are arguably the second best healer in the game, then isnt that a core ability of ours as well?

For example; I’d like to see plate armor affect damage mitigation to a higher degree compared to leather and silk. It just seems wrong that a cleric in plate goes down almost exactly as fast as a druid in leather with similar level equipment on because the 150 extra ac afforded by the plate just doesn’t cut it. Especially considering the ability to wear plate was and is used by the makers as a selling point for being a cleric (see link below). Who knows, maybe that could even help pallies tank GoD. On the other hand, I don’t see why clerics should be able to nuke like a druid, as one hopeful healer has suggested.

Depending on how many hps the cleric has, that 150AC (and its generally more than that unless your a really well equiped druid) can make the difference between the druid getting pasted and the cleric. My clerics almost never die before me unless we get trained somehow. I almost always generate more aggro with 1 snare and 1 nuke than a cleric can in the same time period. And the aggro code also takes into account proximity and hps/ac of the people on the list, and will often go for the "weaker" target in terms of hps/ac. Especially if they are already damaged. We lost a lot of necro's that way and shamans if they canni'd at the wrong time.

Frankly I wouldnt really care much if clerics got nukes equal to druids. They might then learn the wonderful fact that a nuke + a ICH = 1 rez. Most druids are able to do either healing or nuking but not both in the same fight. Making whether they have both or not fairly academic. Of course, it might be easier for clerics aggro wise since HoT's generate far less aggro, but you'll probably still run into mana pool issues that druids do.

So I went and read this (http://eqlive.station.sony.com/library/classes.jsp) again to remind me why I picked my class. I last read it back in 99. I think every class should re-read it and try to realise the difference between asking for modifications to something you are supposed to be able to do, and asking for something you were never intended to have. Ok, they are very general descriptions and the game has changed a lot since they were written, but surely there lye the reasons for choosing your class – those are the things you were supposed to be happy with having. Aren’t those the designs we should be working on and trying to flesh out – the core of our classes.

Firemynd pretty much answered that one. The game has changed so much since 99 thats its entirely new. My sister just started playing in December and I found out that I really couldnt help her much other than with the game basics. The game had changed so much since I was a newbie back in 99 that its almost an entirely new game. Hell, rangers (and most hybrids) were the suck back then. Hmmm...and if I recall so were clerics and enchanters.

Anyway, I hope this aids other peoples ideas some, it's just my opinion and nothing to get worked up about. I’d be happy to hear others thoughts - particularly if they mind trading in class uniqueness for group desireability. Bit of a tough subject that I've only really scratched the surface of. :wavey:

I wouldnt mind trading up druid uniqueness for more group desireability or even usefulness. Oh wait...exactly what do druids have that is unique again?

Frankly I'd much rather see SoE try to muck about with changing a single class or two than to make broad changes across the game. Heck, even when dealing with the changes to just 1 class you can break the game. Druid/shaman ICH almost broke the game when they put it in. It was absolutely necessary, but it pretty much destroyed the pre-SoL game. That single change alone took our guild from having to work with an alliance of 4 other guilds to take out say Vindi to being able to do it solo with about 14 people. And lets not even get into how trivial Kunark stuff became.

When you start messing around with things like damage tables and the like, the potential to absolutely destroy some classes is always there. Monks can tell you much more about this than I can though. But even a simple sounding change like making plate much more damage absorbing than say leather can make a massive change. That single change alone would probably destroy most non-plate wearers groupability. Warriors, for example, would probably have an even harder time trying to hold aggro against a mob when a BL or Druid is doing his/her thing. Mobs would almost always go after the druid/BL/Monk over anyone else with fairly similar hate due to the aggro code discussed above. Mobs tend to go for the weaker character in proximity. Which is why, when summoned, a smart druid simply backs up behind the tank, but not far enough to move the mob.

All in all though, clerics are pretty safe. SoE has made it clear that simply improving druids without giving equal or better toys to clerics/shamans will never happen. They simply do not have the balls it would take to make an improvement only to druids and then face the fireswarm of protests from those groups. Anything that improves druids by X percent will also happen to clerics and shamans either at the same time, or shortly after. Therefore keeping parity and making the said change almost worthless other than making older content trivial.

But as others have pointed out, if druids wanted to experience end game content first, they should have rolled clerics up instead. At least we can satisfied that a druid will always have a place in the game. 1 expansion behind as we become viable healers in those groups because all the clerics are up in the end game, but still very very necessary there.

I'm sorry, I've turned this a bit around havent I?

Excuse me. I think I'll go pet my kitty now. She looks a bit lonely sitting there on the couch watching cat-girls all the time.

Kellory Silverstar

FYI, SoE updates class discriptions fairly often.

Well said Firemynd.

Couple of comments. not really argument but more observations from being arounds since beta.

1) AC should mitigate the amount of damage done. Yes a cleric in Plate should take less damage than a Druid because of AC.
2) Verant said that AGI is was the primary stat for Druids (why I had to reroll my first druid since I put his pts in AGI and Dex). And that should mitigate how often you get hit. I have high Agi and dodge so that I should get hit less in my puny leather tunic.
>There are two defence AA's Stability and Agility which are supposed to work like AC and AGI should work. Higher AC you take less dmg per hit Higher AGI the less often you get hit. If those worked both classes should be happy.

Druids are a magic using class.. True. But that magic is supposed to make up for the lack of AC buy giving us the ability to mitigate damage on ourselves and others in exchange for lower AC, Weaker weapons and lower HP. Druids do very well in mitigating and also doing damage. Cleric do better in mitigating but not so well in damage. That is class balance.

> The problem with GoD isn't Druid healing. It is that the module if flawed in mitigation. Druids, Shaman, SK, Bst, Paladins, etc cannot Mitigate the damage. If our debuffs worked HoR/Slow etc we would be able to use other classes besides the Trinity. So the classes are not broken. GoD is flawed by design. Any fix to the classes unbalances prior content.

The class discriptions are changed continually. I created my druid based on the original class discription as follows:

"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. "

As opposed to the discription of the cleric:

"II. CLERIC - The Cleric is a holy man endowed by his patron deity with the power to heal, and, to a lesser extent, call upon the wrath of his deity to smite his foes. Prayer is how the Cleric gains his ability."

When I started, no where did it say Druids are less powerful healers than clerics. That did not come till later. And of course the poor shaman were told by the manual..

"X. SHAMAN - Similar to the Cleric, but are more of a tribal witch doctor, the Shaman are typically found amongst the more primitive races. Their primary focus is the healing of Clerical renown, but they also employ a variety of augmentation and offensive spells. "

LOL ROFLMAO.. sorry but always chuckle to see Verant refer to shaman and use the words "Healing of Clerical renown".. sorry... hehehehe..

The original separation was that clerics got AC and heals sooner. Druids got Defensive magics and Shaman offensive magics. But then, SoE would never lie to us would they?

If we got defensive magics that made a difference in GoD there would be no discussion of improving Druid Heals.

Reading the original manual always is good for laughs.. I loved this note at the end..

Section III. Known Spell Bugs

In an effort to alleviate some of the painful spell purchases and
/petitions, I am posting (and will continue to post) a list of spells
that do not work, or that have the bugs associated with them.

-- Geoffrey Z.


BUGGED SPELLS


CLERIC (up to spell circle 6 / Level 24)

Sense Magic – No additional information on some items
Halo of Light – Does not work


DRUID (up to spell circle 6 / Level 24)

Sense Magic – No additional information on some items
Dance of the Fireflies – Does not work
Starshine – Does not work
Halo of Light – Does not work
Wind Strike – Creatures are not marked as "Flying" yet, so the spell
does not work
Wind Blast – See Above
Forest – Occasionally has bugs & does not change you to a tree / back
to normal

ROFL... I am still waiting for them to fix the Sence Magic and Forest spell.

I assume Sony are still using those class descriptions as they've written some new ones for beserkers and beastlords. Anyway let's have a look.

Druids are disciples of the wilds, following the teachings of the Norrathian gods of nature. Druids are primarily a magic-using class, with the ability to wear leather armor and wield blunt weapons and scimitars.

Druidic magic takes many forms, allowing the druid to fill a wide variety of roles when in a group or adventuring alone. Druids possess excellent healing abilities, powerful mana and health regenerative spells, and valuable enhancements that improve the health and armor of their group.

Offensively, druids are both powerful and versatile. They have access to fire and cold-based damage spells, a selection of disease and swarm spells that damage their enemies over time, and devastating banishment spells focused upon unnaturally summoned creatures. Druids also gain some of the best travel spells, including the ability to speed up their group's movement and teleport their group to distant regions.

Druids are a well-rounded class, prospering in both solo and grouped situations. An experienced druid is able to adventure alone, but is equally at home in a group. The druid is an excellent class for players who enjoy a variety of play styles and options.

Well that's actually mostly true apart from the disease based spells. I'm not sure when I 'devastated' anything with my summoned line of spells and perhaps my healing is only excellent compared to a rangers, but I can excuse them selling the class a little.

Druids are a well-rounded class, prospering in both solo and grouped situations. An experienced druid is able to adventure alone, but is equally at home in a group. The druid is an excellent class for players who enjoy a variety of play styles and options.

That statement should really be changed. Soloing is no longer promoted and for the past year soloing has been nerfed to almost zero for end game druids.

I take particular exception to the "able to adventure alone" phrasing .... certainly not any adventures in LDoN.

Now that would've made the expansion worth every copper, eh?

~Firemynd

Yes, the druid was originally balanced around its ability to solo; however, over the past few years the game has imposed increasing number of penalties on nearly all the methods by which we can possibly solo. More 'normal' (unnamed) mobs are totally immune to snare/root, more 'normal' mobs can summon, and charm has been nerfed in various ways. Why advertise soloing as a class feature if they're going to penalize players for doing it and repeatedly nerf/restrict spell lines which have little or no purpose outside of soloing?

Yes exactly. It's due to the availablity of soloable content as much as specific nerfs to druids, probably more so.

Requests for class improvements need to be made in the scope of how the game, and each class, exists today.

Yeh they do. It's not unhelpful to remember where we've come from when deciding where to go next though.

-----------------------

General changes to EQ are actually far more unbalancing and potentially game breaking than simply making a change to a single class. Just ask monks how well the new melee system has worked out for them.

I was talking about changes to content as opposed to changes to a specific class. That doesn't necessarily mean a general change or even a large change. E.g. Changes to a charm effect that class in every zone where they might charm, whereas changing the way an encounter behaves effects only that encounter obviously. It really depends, but if you've got your mind set on constantly looking to change something about your class as the solution thats ok. There are examples of unpopular class changes and general changes alike, neither of which persuade me that making similar changes must be a bad idea.


I'm glad to hear it. Will you give back run3/5 now please? Or PoK stones? Or your idols and those invis devices? How about your self mana spells? All those are things druids or other class could do/use long before clerics got them and simply diluted what those classes could do.

Of course, none of those are anything more than convience things and most druids I know are glad clerics and paladins can use most of them since it lowers the hassle on them. But you still cant say that druids are the only ones who benefit from diluting classes. In fact, we're the ones generally on the other end.


I'm not bothered about Runspeed or PoK stones or invis potions. And where did I say druids benefitted from class dilution at all? I'm saying that you can always continue to dilute classes in order to 'balance' them, but how much further do you want to take that?

Oh yeah, and if we are arguably the second best healer in the game, then isnt that a core ability of ours as well?

Sorry if that was unclear - I said healing IS a core ability of druids.

Frankly I wouldnt really care much if clerics got nukes equal to druids. They might then learn the wonderful fact that a nuke + a ICH = 1 rez. Most druids are able to do either healing or nuking but not both in the same fight

Suppose it depends on the fight. I find I do alot of healing and nuking on raids, often in the same fight on a named. I won't nuke and be in a CH chain though if thats what you mean.

Frankly I'd much rather see SoE try to muck about with changing a single class or two than to make broad changes across the game

I'd rather see them introduce content that allows existing players to challenge it effectivley without having to change the classes.

When you start messing around with things like damage tables and the like, the potential to absolutely destroy some classes is always there.

True enough, the same is true of changes applying to a specific class. Anyway, just because something can be done incorrectly doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I agree though, if possible changing things like this should be one of the last things to consider.

But even a simple sounding change like making plate much more damage absorbing than say leather can make a massive change. That single change alone would probably destroy most non-plate wearers groupability. Warriors, for example, would probably have an even harder time trying to hold aggro against a mob when a BL or Druid is doing his/her thing. Mobs would almost always go after the druid/BL/Monk over anyone else with fairly similar hate due to the aggro code discussed above. Mobs tend to go for the weaker character in proximity

I'm aware of blood agro for having very low hit points. But mobs taking your ac/mitigation into account when calculating agro is new to me. Anyway I still think plate mitigation is poor, but it's just an example and if it couldn't be introduced without breaking agro and destroying non-plate wearers groupability, fair enough.

I'm sorry, I've turned this a bit around havent I?

That's ok, this is one of my first posts here and I'm glad some people saw fit to answer at all.



I take particular exception to the "able to adventure alone" phrasing .... certainly not any adventures in LDoN.

Now that would've made the expansion worth every copper, eh?


When soloing druids were alot more prolific, people would always say 'Ah yes, but you can solo' whenever you critisised something about your class. That never really bothered me, so yes I'd like to have seen what you suggest here Firemynd.

When soloing druids were alot more prolific, people would always say 'Ah yes, but you can solo' whenever you critisised something about your class.

This is precisely the reason why some believe the Druid class is long overdue to have something totally unique to offer groups.

By allowing us some progression through soloing and making solo-centric abilities part of the druid's overall composition, developers always had justification for limiting the druid's group-centric abilities.

In my estimation, all the nerfs to soloing (and nerfs to the very experience gained from it) have effectively eliminated any prior justification for not allowing druids a more defined grouping niche. I'm afraid something 'unique' just isn't in the cards and utility has become too diluted to consider it a specialist strength, so this would've had to be either healing or dps.

Healing seemed to be the most logical choice, since the game only had one primary heal class. In hindsight, players of that one specialist heal class have proven themselves bent on maintaining their monopoly at all costs. Since DPS tends to stack more nicely in groups/raids, there probably would've been less resistance from specialist DPS classes if druids had been bumped to 3rd or 4th best damage instead of 9th or 10th, even withstanding our (distant) 2nd-best in heals.

~Firemynd

I was talking about changes to content as opposed to changes to a specific class. That doesn't necessarily mean a general change or even a large change. E.g. Changes to a charm effect that class in every zone where they might charm, whereas changing the way an encounter behaves effects only that encounter obviously. It really depends, but if you've got your mind set on constantly looking to change something about your class as the solution thats ok. There are examples of unpopular class changes and general changes alike, neither of which persuade me that making similar changes must be a bad idea.

A widespread change is a widespread change no matter how its phrased. Lets take charm for example. Imagine the chaos that could ensue if you made the simple change of making spiders charmable by druids. That single change could trivialize dozens of encounters from old world to PoP.

Or even if you change the very nature of how charm works. Say its based now totally on Charisma. It would suck to be a neco then. While I personally would shed few tears for any DPS nerf to a necro, I could understand that they would be justifiably annoyed to lose it. As it stands their low charisma does affect their charms a lot, but it doesnt make it unusable either.

I'm not bothered about Runspeed or PoK stones or invis potions. And where did I say druids benefitted from class dilution at all? I'm saying that you can always continue to dilute classes in order to 'balance' them, but how much further do you want to take that?

You said it here.

The problem that druids and hybrids have in suggesting change, is that a lot of what they are was always a part of other classes – so it is nearly always seen as an infringement on another class to suggest an improvement, even to a core ability such as healing.

I took this to mean that you were saying that pretty much any improvement to druids would dilute another class. Therefore anything that benefits druids will dilute another class. I was simply pointing out that most other classes have benefited a lot over the years in getting things that used to be druid or caster spells first. And that you cant have it both ways. If druids have been totally diluted over the years, its time to give something back.

Sorry if that was unclear - I said healing IS a core ability of druids.

My bad there. I took what you said to mean you saw healing as a core ability of another class. Nevertheless, if healing IS one of our core abilities then it shouldnt dilute any other class for us to be good at it should it? Its already ours and we're not asking for the moon here. Just close parity.

Suppose it depends on the fight. I find I do alot of healing and nuking on raids, often in the same fight on a named. I won't nuke and be in a CH chain though if thats what you mean.

Actually I find it much easier to heal and nuke on a named than in a normal xp fight. Named mob fights tend to go on for several minutes which gives tanks plenty of time to build up insane amounts of aggro. Its your smaller 30 second - 1 minute fights where I tend to see problems in healing and nuking at the same time. Also raids are easier too when you have 60 other people hitting the mob and spreading aggro. Single group fights tend to be trickier and more limiting in my experience. At least for the casual non-EP/Time/VP equiped druid.

I'd rather see them introduce content that allows existing players to challenge it effectivley without having to change the classes.

I think we all would. That hasnt and isnt happening though. So instead of wishing most of us would rather simply face reality and work within the framework that is already there.

True enough, the same is true of changes applying to a specific class. Anyway, just because something can be done incorrectly doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I agree though, if possible changing things like this should be one of the last things to consider.

I'll agree here. But SoE has such a bad track record of correctly balancing sweeping changes that I shudder to even suggest it. And if they did do that, and it did break things, well...I can just imagine the backlash. You'd have half of EQClerics here blaming us for it all. Not to mention every other class affected.

Plus I have no faith that even such a change would benefit and not nerf druids in the end.

I'm aware of blood agro for having very low hit points. But mobs taking your ac/mitigation into account when calculating agro is new to me. Anyway I still think plate mitigation is poor, but it's just an example and if it couldn't be introduced without breaking agro and destroying non-plate wearers groupability, fair enough.

As far as I'm aware ac/hps is a factor. Or it was supposed to be. Level in comparison to the rest of the people on the aggro list as well I think. They supposedly totally revamped the aggro code several years ago to try to make the mobs more intelligent. All I noticed though is that I do get summoned and hit far less with 1kac than at 950AC. And it isnt a change in my style or mobs or anything. Pure silk casters would probably notice it too if it wasnt for the fact that they have had SCS for awhile, nukes dont generate as much aggro as heals/snare, and that they dont typically have to stand as close to the mob as druids do since we need to be closer in generally to land a heal.

When soloing druids were alot more prolific, people would always say 'Ah yes, but you can solo' whenever you critisised something about your class. That never really bothered me, so yes I'd like to have seen what you suggest here Firemynd.

As Firemynd said when we could solo it was justifiable. But these days druid solo is little more than a memory. Certainly we still can in pre-PoP zones with crappier xp. And certainly we can in PoP if we are willing to take the much longer kill times into account. But most solo classes can solo far better than we can even today. The solo argument is one that's generally used by those that dont know and dont care what druids can do and simply pull figures from their butt or talk about things that havent been true for years.

The bottom line though is that SoE has little to no interest in improving druids.

At the same time its probably useless to ask for better expansions or widespread changes to game design. The simple fact is that SoE no longer really cares too much about EQ no matter what they say. The days of them spending a large amount of resources and dev time trying to balance things are over. Quick fixes and the like are all they're interested in these days.

EQ is simply something to continue to milk while they work on new games that they hope wont have the issues and problems of EQ. And to be honest, it'll probably be easier to design a brand new game than to fix EQ properly.

All I know is that my druid is nowhere even close to what he was when I first started. Many things are better, some are worse. In the end though I've had fun in EQ and thats the bottom line for me regardless of the other issues.

As Firemynd said when we could solo it was justifiable. But these days druid solo is little more than a memory. Certainly we still can in pre-PoP zones with crappier xp. And certainly we can in PoP if we are willing to take the much longer kill times into account. But most solo classes can solo far better than we can even today. The solo argument is one that's generally used by those that dont know and dont care what druids can do and simply pull figures from their butt or talk about things that havent been true for years.

Well, I can solo just fine in PoP. I do however think that many a class can now solo far more effectively than druids. I cannot honestly say druid soloing is a strong selling point of the class anymore. 2 of the classes that solo much better than druids are... bards and wizards; interestingly, both are also HIGHLY desired in raids and groups... hmmmmm.

Callahad