I was back up healer for a LDoN group a couple of weeks ago. The MH was a Cleric.

I did what I normally do in most LDoN's when I am not the MH which is cast my clicky "Tempest Wrath": http://www.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=3602 ; and then cast Eci's and Winter's Frost. After casting these, I generally Melee and may cast Winter's Frost again for the kill if needed. And of course I patch heal as needed.

I watch my casting in case the MH runs into trouble and I need to take over Healing in an emergency... I want a good amount of mana, just so I will be prepared.

My problem is that I was yelled at by someone in the group because I was not sitting down and medding. I was told that Druids do NOT melee. And that the other members in the group were wondering what I was doing since I was not medding (later found this out to be a lie... when questioned later, no other participant in the group thought this) Annnnnnyway. My question is:

If Druids have plenty of mana, do you think it is alright for them to melee? Or should they sit and med during fights, regardless of mana.

I was made to feel like a total noob because I thought that causing dmg with melee would help (every little bit helps) instead of sitting and doing nothing between nukes, buffs, heals etc.

Personally I do not melee when I am in a DPS role. I either nuke or med for nukes.

When I am in a healer role I tend to be much more mana conscious and try and hold back mana for heals. In that case I often melee. My hammer procs for some nice damage that can certainly contribute.

Don't let anyone tell you what your role is. They can either except how you play a druid or chose not to have you in their groups. You don't need to fit into the template someone else has set forth for you.

I suppose it depends on the situation. If you dont have a problem keeping near to full mana, melee away! I see no worries with this.

I see the same group complaining had you chain nuked and took aggro.

I for one love melee. My weapon does nice damage, it procs more mana for me, and its great fun IMO. However, I wouldnt do it in a setting where things weren't easy (Vxed/Tipt/KT) and I certainly wouldnt do it on raids (ok sometimes if pulling trash) but in LDONS I play offtank and love it.

So I say if you can handle doing multiple things - keep doing it. Its a game and you should do with it what you like (unless it affects anothers gametime as well - for instance melee when you have no mana and are no longer good to the group).

Thanks for the response guys! I feel better! :heart:

I think they should melee, they should be able to hold two weapoms and evrything.

Yikes...a druid meleeing? Surely you jest?

I need to qualify my amazement by saying that low level druids certainly do and should melee. Once you get to 50+, put away your weapons for good.

Firstly, you can do more damage nuking (quick fight) or dotting (long fight) than you can ever do meleeing. You gain mana for sit-medding that you don't get while meleeing.

Second, there are better, non-melee items for the primary slot that will enhance your abilities beyond what a melee item would.

The only time I meleed after level 50 was when I was whacking pixies in Lesser Faydark for their dust (baking tradeskill). I could kill them faster by hitting them, than casting on them.

If you want to melee, pick another class.

Thicket

I am a 56 druid, and I do like to melee, in outdoor zones where there is room to move into melee on my drog without affecting the real damage classes abillity to get to the mob. My weapon has a 320 dd proc on it, not a bad addition to the dot I cast at start of fight, especially if it goes off 2 or 3 times on a mob. I think druids and any class should be able to work on melee skills - but pick your times. I play with a group of RL friends, we have a great puller (Monk) and a really good warrior tank. I find that even taking care of regen and DS and sow/shrew recasts, I still have enough mana to backup heal and even throw an extra DD or two on nasty casters - and melee at the same time. The only skill that isn't quite maxed is 2hb - oh and hand to hand lol but I think I'd have a hard time justifying why I wasn't holding all my gear and only punching for 2 damage. :shuffle:

I just started to melee recently and I like it. I cant melee every mob because of mana regen but if you are full mana there is no reason not melee. DPS is DPS. Nothing wrong with taking a couple swings between nukes. I try to stay away from melee when I am the healer though. Never know when the crazy ranger is going to over pull and drain all my mana.

Second, there are better, non-melee items for the primary slot that will enhance your abilities beyond what a melee item would.

Wha? I suppose this depends on your level, but I assure you the best druid primaries are very much melee-focused while giving you the benefits you mention. What items are you thinking of? Perhaps you mean at a low level?

Saw this bumped recently and noticed it had been 2 long months and a weapon upgrade since I had seen it last. Despite the loss of a mana proc, I still melee quite often between casts. Every extra bit helps if you can afford not medding. And I see many times that is the case these days with KEI/VOQ, FT15 being easier to come by, Tribute, bard song, etc etc etc.

It makes little sense not to melee (if again, you can afford it). Lordon's take on it is pretty dead on...

IF you are not neglecting your other group duties (be it healing, debuffing, snaring, nuking, dotting, or any combination of the above), and IF you have plenty of mana in reserve, and IF you're not getting in the way of the melee'ers in the group (pushing the mob around, making them work harder on positioning, etc) then go for it.

Firstly, you can do more damage nuking (quick fight) or dotting (long fight) than you can ever do meleeing. You gain mana for sit-medding that you don't get while meleeing.I don't think most people would suggest melee'ing INSTEAD of nuking/dotting, but simply in ADDITION to. And there's times when you can't recast nukes fast enough to need to med, especially without pulling agro from the tank.
Second, there are better, non-melee items for the primary slot that will enhance your abilities beyond what a melee item would.Please click my sig for my magelo and tell me what I should replace my primary item with that I can't melee with. Thanks!

Possibly this sometime in the future when you reach the end of GoD, depending on your focus effect arrangement (if you have a critical item in your offhand already)?

Tome of Discordant Magic
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
AC: 26
DEX: +20 STA: +30 CHA: +20 WIS: +30 INT: +30 HP: +235 MANA: +255 ENDUR: +255
SV FIRE: +30 SV COLD: +15 SV MAGIC: +15 SV POISON: +30
Avoidance: +5 Stun Resist: +4% Mana Regeneration: +4
Required level of 65.
Focus: Quickening of Solusek
WT: 2.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: CLR DRU SHM NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 8

I had to look hard to find something better than the Hammer of Hours for primary slot that wasn't a weapon.

(I use a Hammer of Hours myself. Very roughly I found that I gained about 25 dps using mana from medding, if I'm on a horse, compared to about 50 dps from melee + procs if hasted. The proc accounted for about 25-30 dps of that. If I had a different weapon with a smaller proc I wouldn't melee nearly as much.)

Yah I would never choose to melee instead of casting, UNLESS I was concerned about more nukes causing agro, OR if the stuff is dying too fast to cast again (LDON comes to mind). ;)

Why not? If I am in a healing role in a group, I will have the majority of my mana reserved for heals. So instead of wasting mana on nuking, I use our damage shields and meleeing to contribute a little extra dps.

druid melee after Level 20? HA

even with Hammer of Hours. still have a hard enough time just hitting the mob.

No meleeing is not our role. I love to melee but only tend to do so to get my weapon to procure Rune. Since it is a druid equipable item guess they expect us to melee once in awhile :)

even with Hammer of Hours. still have a hard enough time just hitting the mob.

Work your 1HB...?

Ive seen several threads showing a decent amount of a DPS boost from the Hammer - the last parse I saw someone was testing on PoE mobs...and it was an impressive increase.

I maxxed my 2HB with the old weapon, and hit plenty often...of course my 1hb sucks so Im currently missing lots =)

even with Hammer of Hours. still have a hard enough time just hitting the mob.

You don't need to land the hit to proc.. most of HoH's damage is from the proc so it is still a reliable form of DPS.

.

On normal LDoNs or exp groups I will typically never launch a nuke when a mob is at 15% or below. I'll instead get out my beat stick and offer the beast some fleshthreaded luvvin. Above that I will nuke - but even still I'll sometimes keep my melee on as one can get 1-2 swings in before the gem even repops to launch your next nuke in the chain. Don't let this blowhard spoil your fun.

If you've got a good cleric healer,then by all means melee and help kick arse.I did a normal Ldon where i was main healer,but i also got to melee some too.I may have impressed a few of the peeps in grp,either that or they were just eyeing my breasts :)

If the question is really "should a druid melee?" then the answer is "if that's what's fun for you and your group doesn't mind, go for it"

But honestly, medding for more nuke damage will probably be better for your group. Druid melee DPS is laughable. If your "doing ok on mana" then you could be nuking more. If you can't nuke more, then your group should be pulling more mobs or fighting more difficult stuff.

The answer to this question is really easy to figure out with a few parses, but let's do some back of the envelope math. I doubt druids even with very good weapons do much better than about 12 dps (due to terrible ATK scores). How much potential nuke DPS is being given up by not medding? Let's assume medding yields about 18 mana per tick (to make the math easy - I think it's actually more). That's 3 mana per second. Without any focus effects or AA, a druid converts mana to damage at about a 4 damage per mana ratio. That's about 12 dps from medding mana. Add in mana preservation, damage focus, spell crits, spell casting mastery, specialization and we probably talking about close to double that. So unless the druid is able to melee for 20+ DPS, medding and nuking more is clearly better.

I personally consider the situation first, if I am with my friends and we group alot, where I am main healer I usually don't melee. However, if we have our cleric friend with us I fight because I know my tank can hold aggro very well. So I dot, nuke and smack em around a bit. If we are in a more dangerous situation like GoD I don't melee, because if I end up getting aggro, when my weapon procs repeatedly, one or two good smacks and I am roadpizza.
If I am with a pickup group I sit nuke the first few fights and see how the group works and use my judgement from there. But when I am main healer this usually isn't possible due to oom.
But I say if you can maintain your mana (and I can) and still melee then go for it! :thumbup:


Guv :buttrock:

I like to melee too but I usually only do it when things are either really easy or really desperate. People will think you are clueless if you just melee around them without any explanation. Maybe just take a min to explain, "hey i have a nice proc wep plus dex and haste and blah blah mind if I melee a bit as long as I keep 75% + mana?".

I always melee if am DPS is any zone where you cant use a mount, and nobody has ever complained about it =p I am not sure how much difference in mana I get in procs with respect to medding, but I doubt is too significant. And the extra mana free dmg between casts is always nice.

Yeah most folks here have said.

Situationally, sure, why not. Or when you're fighting a mana drain ae mob and you're oom. Or when you're fighting something really magic resistant.

I don't think, however, it's better to melee than to nuke/dot for DPS, but it's fun to NOT have to nuke/dot/buff/heal once in a while.

It also depends on your gear. If you have a HoH with proc augs and gear with +combat effects and haste, then you'll do an okay amount of DPS. But the MM blade really isn't much more than a melee toy. I still smack it around some, but mostly I get annoyed that I can't hit a barn door with it!

I think it's much more fun to be in a group with a cleric and have the cleric melee while I main heal. Gets the cleric out of their normal role and with the proper gear, they can do some nice damage and bashing.

But never let anyone make you feel like a noob. They were being poopyheads.

If the group I am in are doing extremely well... then I might whip out my trusty Scimitar and smack the mobs a bit. Like a tiny druid DoT. It's fun to fool around sometimes. :D

Generally speaking, it depends on what weapon you plan to melee with. If its a weapon with a large DD proc or a mana sieve proc (assuming that the mobs have mana) then its worth it. Without a proc theres no reason to melee.

I was parsed doing over 75 dps with just melee in sol ro with my hammer, thats more then some paladins.

The best places to melee imo are zones where you cant use a horse. In xp groups I rarely med through fights because agro / ducking reasons. In some zones where you can use your horse i melee as well, though I find the positioning on a horse annoying, so it rarely last long.

Anyways, to answer your question should a druid melee I would say "If the sitution makes it efficient to." I can't confirm this, but I believe medding increases your mana regan rate by 20 / tick, or 200 per minute. Assuming you have elemental gloves, summers flame will cost a tad more then that, but for the sake of this experiment lets just assume its 1400 more damage a minute (since its over 200 mana just elitmate mods / crits.) If you have a hammer of hours with a 150 DD proc aug on it, your doing an average of 1800 damage a minute, so In that case BY meleeing you do 400 more damage, and thats before your actual melee damage, which can really differ upon your gear / buffs.

I also believe that if you have the mana pool, done your first round of casting, and you're sure you aren't gonna get the aggro, then go ahead and get in a few shots...why not, it's fun to hit things *evil grin*

Most of the time, no, I do not melee (i'm usually on main heals, though)... but from time to time, I'll notice a mob that just does NOT seem to want to die and once I do my last round of casts I'll jump in and get a few more hits in...or if snare has kicked in so they're turned away and I'm sure to not get aggro. I am a firm believer in every hit counts...i have spells AND weapons for a reason.

Now, with this said, I am by no means uber, but I have what I think to be decent mana (not in an uber guild, dont have uber friends, etc so my basis for comparison might be flawed). I almost always have kei (c3 on some servers), my own mana spells (mask and cabbage, or 9), I also have a droggie. A few of my items have mana regen and almost all have mana stats. It is very rare that (with a decent group) I ever go below 70% mana. If you're not thrilled with your mana pool then medd'ing is the right thing to do.

I also agree with one of the posters that if you feel you are a solid druid and you've been playing a while, really feel like you know what you're doing and do it well (and you've never had any complaints before) then blow them off...who cares what they think :)

Been a meleeing Druid all my career. My 1HS and 1HB were always maxed out quickly and when I am in DPS mode I am smacking the bad guy during recast. I also have a 40% haste item which helps tremendously. Melee is a tool just like any other and just because it is not super uber does not mean I ignore it.

LZ

I say go for it along with all the things already said about having adequate mana etc, etc. Personally I dont melee for the purpose of dealing damage. Dont have the funky hammer, and my scimitar only gets me like 30 - 40 on the rare hit. But its fun to do sometimes when I feel like it.

I wouldn't let the DPS factor deter me either. I've seen some pretty convincing arguments on how kick (for those classes that can) is pretty much worthless. However, every class I play that can kick... kicks! =) Like someone said, DPS is DPS. Who hasn't died to a mob that was 0% health? (Hate that!) Mebbe a lil Druid whacking might have turned the table?

all i have to say.. druid meleeing is no different from a cleric meleeing..

Why can't a druid melee? Like others have said, if you can keep your mana up you shouldn't have to worry. I, myself, I'm a battle druid. I have 2 proc augs on my epic. Why? /shrug Lol, helps weed out the Miss messages when I proc. :D

I found it quite fun to melee last time we did qvic M'sha's. My 2h bash is at about 38 (don't laugh). These mobs are hightly resistant to nukes. I'm very watchful of healing others but with panther cast on me I was doing 900 damage almost every hit. That's more damage than I would be able to do with nuking and that saves my mana on healing others when necessary.


Working on 2hb skill is good :)

Ice and Fire are resisted.

use Karana's Rage. Mana is a bit much for the damage, but it hits /shrug

Voted yes because we get aggro if we want anyway!! hehehehhehe :buttrock:

theres a cool new dropable tradeable weapon that drops in illians in DoD off a 1 grpable named and has Time Lapse on it, if any of you are interested, i sure am , but i still havent gotten one.

:tut:
Yikes...a druid meleeing? Surely you jest?

If you want to melee, pick another class.



I could see someone saying something to a druid like: "if you want to Feign Death, pick another class." as it is currently outside the realm of possibility for druids to Feign Death. However, it is within the realm of possibility for druids to melee, and telling another how to play their class, when it sounds like they had their responsibilities covered, seems, well, a bit paternalistic and maybe borderline rude.

Just my opinion

DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO!!!!! Its your character and you play it how you want... Don't let someone tell you how to play you, and when someone does, don't let it get to you. Maybe they are mad cause they messed up playing them. Who knows but if you want to melee, do it. As for me i have a shammy and i play it like a druid ( root, dot, dot, dot, nuke) and i love it. All classes i think should get some type of HP/AC buff to go anywhere with cause you never know when you will get aggro and come face to face with death.

My current favored method of soloing is basically tossing Vengence of the Sun, Wasp Swarm, and Swarming Death (from clicky) and using Skin of the Reptile to heal while meleeing with a greatstaff of power for the mana proc. The 3 Dots are doing the most damage out of the mix but the melee is great for keeping mana steady and tossing in hits from 100-220 damage about 3/5 swings isn't too bad!

Admittedly, most people don't have access to those toys. It meleeing worth it? Probably not. Could you do more dps if you weren't meleeing? Maybe. Is it your character? I hope so!

Do what you want, druids aren't great dps and if that's 100% of the reason you were asked to come to a group then your group should've gotten a mage or wizard or rogue or some other dps class. I melee in a lot of groups like LDoNs. We tend to end up pulling 3-5 mobs at once and sitting is asking to get smacked. Melee dps is a viable way to help keep your mana up if you use it in place of a dot or nuking. Sustaining your dps is far more important than how much you can cap it at.

With a good weapon you can melee as dps help in group fights, e.g. www.magelo.com/eq_item_info.html?num=70254&slot1=42083 (http://www.magelo.com/eq_item_info.html?num=70254&slot1=42083)
and a nice damage proc like www.magelo.com/eq_item_info.html?num=42083 (http://www.magelo.com/eq_item_info.html?num=42083).

The most time I melee is when I solo with damage shield and regen.
My augmented weapon yields up to 100 damage with high dexterity.

As a druid who melees every chance I get, I say go for it. As long as you know when you need to med, heal or any of the other things we druids do without ever being asked,:) I say go ahead take a whack at the mob, if you get lucky you might get the kill shot. I absolutely agree with all those that say play the way you are comfortable, there is nothing more boring than sitting and medding if I don't need to. Have fun, it's just a game after all.

I have a screenshot of a h2h killshot in RS =x I need to upload it somewhere ><

if you're full mana, hp, and the mob doesn't AE, or resist beyond belief, i guess melee it is.

I absolutely love to Melee. I am so old school that I remember way back in the day before druids had truly defined roles, I used to Melee ALL the time. When I made 25, I finally had to hang up the staff and admit to myself that most of my time was going to be sitting staring at the spellbook.

However, I still melee every chance I get. I have a fairly new weapon that I got from the 68.1 arc that I LOVE! My group is usually myself, 70 warrior, and 70 cleric. Sometimes, we switch out the warrior for another 70 Druid so most of our fights are root/dot. But I still get up there and club the baddie if I can!

I agree with the people here who have said, if you got the mana, and know when it is time to heal/dot - go for it!

My current favored method of soloing is basically tossing Vengence of the Sun, Wasp Swarm, and Swarming Death (from clicky) and using Skin of the Reptile to heal while meleeing with a greatstaff of power for the mana proc. The 3 Dots are doing the most damage out of the mix but the melee is great for keeping mana steady and tossing in hits from 100-220 damage about 3/5 swings isn't too bad!


Also if you get the chanty haste that lets any class crit..(sorry mind went blank cant remember name) I have had 400+ crits with Greatstaff of Power.

I love to melee, and I DoT the mobs up while doing it. I have maxed 1HB, 1HS and almost maxed on 2 HB. Only melee skill i haven't really worked on is H2H.