I am druid who loves to group. In fact, I like it so much that I generally organize a group whenever I am online. I have noticed, however, that druids seem to be anger magnets whenever we fulfill our role as healers within a group. It seems that players who take the game too seriously always blame us druids when they die.

I am an excellent tactition and pay close attention to my healing duties when in a group. Deaths in my group generally occur only when there are multiple adds. That said, I recently decided not to tolerate in-game verbal abuse from those who die while grouping. Dying is part of EQ and I never give a tank or chanter a hard time when I die because they couldn't pull agro off of me or CC. Just yesterday I had to expel a group member who became so incensed with his death that he began to accuse me of everything from the war in Iraq to ruining his childhood. LoL.

Do you believe that the design of druids causes a built-in bias against them in groups? I am interested in reading about other druids' experiences as group healers. I would also like some suggestions we can pass along to SoE regarding changes to our grouping abilities that might mitigate the built-in bias against grouping druids.

I don't know of any bias once a druid is grouped. The bias is against grouping, if anything.

As for the complainer, you run into those folks with open groups. I've seen them get mad at clerics, etc., too. The appropriate response is to introduce them to LFG status again.

People in my group only die if they insist on getting aggro when the fever gets a hold of me. You know the one ... When all you can see are burnning flames and frozen wastes. Nothing else matters.

They should know better.

Scirocco you may be right. You are a very experienced druid. But the fact that many people refuse to invite druids to join their group flies in the face of your belief that their is no instituional bias against us. If there wasn't, given our many abilities, we would have no problem getting a group in the first place. And yes, I have seen people in open groups get upset at other classes of players, but not to the exten they get upset with us. That includes when I play my alts with someone else playing the druid.

That said, I do believe that booting problem players can be effective. It can also make a group untenable. I would prefer, however, to explore ways of making the druid a class that is seen as an asset to groups, rather than a potential source of problems.

But the fact that many people refuse to invite druids to join their group flies in the face of your belief that their is no instituional bias against us.

My experiance would prove this statement to be false. Every class in EQ has difficulty getting groups at one time or another because of various reasons such as raid times, guild groups, and even bad timing of having many of the same class LFG all at the same time.

There is no player-wide conspiracy to not group with druids. That is just silly.

I main heal a lot in LDoN hard. Usually there is no death and I only do it with friends, so no one will blame me for letting them die occasionally.

The main reason that people blame druid is because cleric simply holds a monopoly in the healer position. In raid, in non trivial exp group, as well as trivial exp group.

Most people will always prefer cleric to be the main healer in every single situtation. But does people always prefer warrior over pal/sk to be the main tank? I think not.

As for why the blame the druid for letting them die, it is very easy to see.

Because a cleric will not simply let them die, and even if so, they will rez you back.

A cleric can HE and then DI the tank before fighting mini named. Can druid do it?
A cleric can use SR or DvA to save a almost dying player, can druid do it?
A cleric can use group heal to deal with massive AE damage, can druid do it?
A cleric can rez the player if he screw up, can druid do it?

Because druid's healing is so much behind cleric, (no emergency healing option AT ALL) no matter how skilled is the druid accident will happen. If you die, and then you have to run across 5 zones to get back your corpse while have to rememebr leaving 1 item on your corpse and then go bug a cleric before the timer is up or wait a extra 30 mintues to get your corpse pop out, will you be happy? I will not. Don't tell me just eat a exp lose even if it only takes 30 minutes to get back the exp. Why I have to lose that 30 minutes when I don't have to by NOT USING DRUID as the main healer?

That's why people blame druid, because not only druid healing simply sucks, but they cannot help their groupmate recover after death. That's why druid is a good option for secondary healer, but never the main.

Now, can anyone tell me if warrior always get prefer as the main tank? Wziard always prefered overe mage as the DPS? No they don't, but cleric is the prefer healer in almost every situtation. That's why it is unbalance.

There is no player wide conspiracy to not gruop with druid? you must be kidding. try to pull up a group (in LDoN hard, or Kod) with only you as the healer, see if people will take the risk. Not all, but quite a few of them will refuse especially if you don't have a <uber guild tag> on your head.

Of course, they will probably believe you after they see you can do reasonably good, but I am not goign to waste my time to convince every single person. however, most people will trust a cleric even if they never play with him.

ha no conspericy aginst druids in group sry but you dont play a druid that plays in elem / kt this is were this problem occures the most take yesterday for example i do group alot ive grouped 63 outa 65 lvls and almost all of my 200+ aas. I know i can main heal kt on almost any size tank. Yesterday i sat 8plus hours lfg thought out the day thank god for other games. becuase of the security of haveing a cleic healer is to great and u only need 1 healer for kt really so that leaves druids for dps :xblueman: thats great in almost all my time playing this game ive rarely goten a group becuase of my dps except for fire tables were they want u becuase u can hold agro and snare. druids need some new tricks if there to keep us in the game if they dont let us re roll a diffrent class and give us equal gear in that class thank you very much.

Man, I never balked at having a druid main healer in a group on my main (bst). Sure, you don't have rez, but you have other utilities a cleric doesn't.

Don't blame you at all for booting that guy Ralisar. In PoV the other night our MT kicked the bucket but he didn't blame the druid healer at all... these things happen and he knew that.

It's observer bias for the most part really.

I've sat in KT /lfg for hours also (Rogue here) and that's just the way of it at times. I personally use Druids preferentially as main healers for trivial content (LDoN easies) and confidently as main healers in slightly less trivial situations (LDoN High-risk etc). On the other hand, Cleric/chanter/druid is my ideal support crew for tough content and is vastly preferable to cleric/shaman/chanter-bard in almost all situations.

I will admit that I'm not a fan of druids as main healers in KT unless a Paladin is tanking, but that's a rez downtime issue. Somehow, somewhere, someone always seems to die eventually. At that point I get to drag them off to a cleric, get em rezzed and wait for them to return and likely wait on them to get some 'crucial' buffs along the way. It kills the flow completely and frankly is a PITA. That'll probably change as we get more used to the zone but for now it remains annoying.

A death in group is always going to be a source of frustration because it results in downtime. Being limited to six people doesn't leave much room for role redundancy in a group; if your tank or puller or main healer dies and you don't have anyone playing a class that can fill-in adequately, the group does not just slow down, it comes to a complete stop.

As for invite bias, there will always be players who simply will refuse to accept anything but a cleric as their main healer. These folks are a catch-22 ... because even if you convince them to invite a druid as healer, they're unlikely to adjust their strategies for 'non-cleric' healing. As a result, they end up tapping out the druid's mana with wreckless pulling and disregard for aggro management (i.e. non-tank classes who *can* reduce or clear their own aggro, but instead of using those abilities they expect to be kept alive). When the inevitable happens and someone dies, they blame the healer instead of taking responsibility for what they could've done better.

Compounding this bias is the potential for drastic differences from one druid to the next even at the same level. There's an insanely wide range in capabilities depending on which AAs the druid has, and to an extent depending on his/her gear (mana, foci, FT, etc).

This is why I'm so strongly in favor of a much higher level cap, with minimum number of AAs as prerequisites for each level beyond 65. I think players deserve to *know* that a 70th level character will have an appropriate compliment of AA abilities when the group needs them.

For instance, if we invite a 70th level warrior to tank challenging mobs I want to know he has adequate AAs in defensive abilities when slows are mitigated. If I'm playing my chanter and the puller doesn't realize the mob he pulled was buggy and brought two dozen mobs with it, I want to know we can call 'evac' and won't have to wait 10 seconds for a 70th level druid to cast it because he doesn't have exodus or QE "yet". If we need a corpse dragged past mobs which see through regular sneak/hide, I don't want to hear a 70th level rogue say he doesn't have SoS "yet".

I believe we've already passed the point at which a group *should* be able to feel confident that a person of max level has the AAs to handle the duties and roles as they have evolved for his/her class. But we've had too many AAs added without any level raises to spread them out, and "65th level" can mean 5 or 500 AAs.

~Firemynd

Good points, Firemynd. I agree that there ought to be AA thresholds to each of the new levels. Not excessively high, but substantial. Say, 50 AA per level. That way most level 65s can immediately get to 66, and probably 67. Getting beyond that will be a bit more difficult.

The problem is that alternate advancement skills are no longer "alternate". Instead, many have fallen into the "required" advancement category.

I like the idea of AA's being linked to the new levels. I used to post in the /lfg how many AA's I had when LDoN first came out for that reason. It was a way to set me above other level 65's, so I would get a group over them.

Rolaque
Saryrn

I honestly think the AA for levels thing is hte silliest thing that I have ever heard people bring up. It gets knocked around a lot, but it is truly a horrible idea.

1. AAs are (as someone else said Alternate Advancement)

2. Having 500 AAs does not make you a better player or Make you more deserving of a level.

3. Omens of War only requires the Original Everquest, so Omens of War would have to come with a whole truckload of AA abilities to not be a complete fraud.

4. The experience GAP between uber and non-uber (not casual) peoples ability to earn AA points is already massive enough. Life is not fair, games should be.

5. I understand this is mostly a ploy by the people currently playing in High XP zones to keep other people out (Who would by virtue of leveling be able to access the zones , even with inferior equipment), it is fairly transparent.

5. I understand this is mostly a ploy by the people currently playing in High XP zones to keep other people out (Who would by virtue of leveling be able to access the zones , even with inferior equipment), it is fairly transparent.

LOL

2. Having 500 AAs does not make you a better player or Make you more
deserving of a level.


You can equally say that being level 65 does not make you a better player than level 1. That's irrelevant.

What is relevant is the relative power of the character, and what the expectation of other players about that relative power may be. Prior to AA, there was a reasonable correlation between power and level. With AAs, there is a world of difference between Class X with 10 AA and Class X with 500 AA.

Don't fool yourself. Having 500 AAs does make your character a more powerful character.



5. I understand this is mostly a ploy by the people currently playing in High XP zones to keep other people out (Who would by virtue of leveling be able to access the zones , even with inferior equipment), it is fairly transparent.

You must belong to the Paranoid Clerics club. Sorry, but this is the first time I've heard of this theory. I'm not in particular favor of limiting access to zone based on level in any event. But if the game does have limited access based on level, there is no difference in also basing access on AAs.

There is no real difference between AAs and levels. Both are directly earned by acquiring XP. Both result in increased power for a character. In fact, you can view levels as just packages of increased abilities/power, while AAs are just those packages broken down into components.

I think there's a huge difference in some classes for AA's. For clerics, the low-AA level 65's when I was playing LDoN, were often unable to keep up mana-wise. The low-AA tanks back when PoP was new, were paper and almost impossible to keep alive in Tier 2.

They made a big difference back in my day. And in some ways, its the great equalizer. You don't need to be in a big raiding guild to get AA's. I don't think its a bad idea to link levels and AA's, to some degree. But not excessively.

4. The experience GAP between uber and non-uber (not casual) peoples ability to earn AA points is already massive enough. Life is not fair, games should be.
:lmao: :rolleyes: :ange:

4. The experience GAP between uber and non-uber (not casual) peoples ability to earn AA points is already massive enough.


I also have to comment on this. I don't think it's true. The ability to earn AA is hardly an "uber" only thing, especially when you're talking about something on the order of 50 AA per level.

Earning AAs is where a time-restricted non-uber powergamer shines....:)

4. The experience GAP between uber and non-uber (not casual) peoples ability to earn AA points is already massive enough.


I also have to comment on this. I don't think it's true. The ability to earn AA is hardly an "uber" only thing, especially when you're talking about something on the order of 50 AA per level.

Earning AAs is where a time-restricted non-uber powergamer shines....:)

Are there different meanings of "ability" here? Certainly casual players can earn AAs steadily, but raiding players have access to gear that one would expect allows them to do so much faster. I think some clarification is in order.

Vestix
64 druid of Tunare

Yes, dont be silly. The prime xp zones and the equipment to use them are in Raider hands and will stay that way for the forseeable future. It's not bias, that's just how it is in eq, and no it's not particularly fair.

The problem is that alternate advancement skills are no longer "alternate". Instead, many have fallen into the "required" advancement category.

Exactly. If you wanna have obscenely lengthy levels, then just make the level that way. Hell level x 10. Requiring AA's for levels is also unfair to many classes who simply run out of useful AA's much earlier than others. Honestly, after about 100 aa's on a druid, the rest is just icing or resists heh. Other classes have different thresholds.

Anyway, start a new thread if you wanna continue this conversation, but it's pretty clear where it's heading already 8P

Are there different meanings of "ability" here? Certainly casual players can earn AAs steadily, but raiding players have access to gear that one would expect allows them to do so much faster. I think some clarification is in order.

I know some folks in mostly bazaar-bought and Ldon gear who have no trouble holding their own in groups and solo. As long as someone is a good player, they shouldn't have any trouble earning an AA point or more every day especially since grouping bonuses were raised ... and non-raiders tend to have more time to spend on this pursuit. Yes, upper tier raiders do have a few places with better ZEMs, but they tend to have less time to spend outside of raids to grind exp.

I'd say it all balances out, and those who are willing to spend more time than average are going to have more AAs, whether in casual guilds or PoTime guilds. Speaking for myself, I'm approaching the 700 mark. While I am in a raid-capable guild, it is composed mainly of working stiffs who can only play a few hours each night and raid for longer sessions on weekends; we're not on the cutting edge of content but we are basically following the game's basic progression path. Most of us have at least 100 AAs, many have 300 or more. All from pre-elemental hunting zones and ldon. This is very comparable to the number of AAs friends in top guilds on the server have.

One good thing about AAs is that they can provide you with the same benefits as gear and then some. For instance, getting to level 65 raises your maximum Wisdom to 280; but getting AAs can raise it to 355, and you can actually increase your wisdom stat itself to 30 more than what your gear provides. This is extra wisdom you have even when 'nekked' on a CR.

AAs can also increase survivability similar to having better gear; more HP, much better damage avoidance, more regen, higher mana efficiency, and up to +30 more to each resist type to fend off magical attacks. When I first went to BoT those giants could take me down pretty quick. Fast forward a few hundred AAs and I can tank one for a few rounds when needed, or for the whole fight if it's even 50% slowed.

~Firemynd

Honestly, after about 100 aa's on a druid, the rest is just icing or resists heh.

Sorry, but that's just plain ridiculous to me. The difference between when I was at 100 and when I was at 500 was substantial. (We won't talk about what it's like to be 700+.)

There's a great big placebo effect, you *want* to believe all those extra aa's do something. They do make a difference, but after a point it's very small, diminishing returns. You cant deny that. As for which ones make an *actual* difference in the effectiveness of a player, there just arent that many.

As much of a "placebo effect" as going from level 63 to 65.

. Honestly, after about 100 aa's on a druid, the rest is just icing or resists heh. Other classes have different thresholds.

Cough.

3 Runspeed 3
3 Innate Metabolism 3

12 Healing Adept 3
12 Healing Gift 3
12 Spell Casting Master 3
12 Spell Casting Reeinforcement 3
12 Natural Durability 3

9 MGB
6 Exodus
5 Innate Camo
8 SCRM

10 Planar Power 5
15 Innate Enlightenment 5

12 AHA
9 AHG
12 RC3
9 SotW3

161 AA, and thats whats i call MINIMUM aa's for an raiding druid. And there are zero Defensive AA, zero DMG AA's included.

I am at 250 aa now, and i didnt even spend 1 pt into resists atm, because there are (IN MY OPINION) alot other more important aa's i need to get before ;P

It is certainly true that each class reaches a point where there is diminishing returns for class-specific abilities, but ALL classes benefit from other types of AAs and I can tell you from personal everyday experience, it is not a placebo effect. :)

BTW, I would say druids need at least 200+ before they begin to reach a point of diminishing class-specific returns, unless their playstyle is limited to 'just' nuking or 'just' healing, and 'just' soloing or 'just' grouping. A week doesn't go by when I haven't done all of that.

Like Scirocco said, I don't think 50 points per level above 65 would be unfair at all. Heck, if you've been 65 for a while, what else have you done with all the exp you've earned? Even if you can get all your class-specific stuff out of the way at 100 AAs, any character can increase in power significantly beyond that point.

~Firemynd

There's some of that too. I actually took my time levelling during PoP. As such, once or twice while doing some of the early tier encounters I wasnt 65. I even parsed my performance doing the Bertox event when I was 63, then a few weeks later at 65 (same gear) and there was really no difference. Besides a slightly larger manapool (which doesnt count for much when you *die* all the time as is a druid's raid role it seems) and a slightly (only slightly since they changed it) better resist rate on nukes etc, the only reason to want to be 65 is spells (and a couple of AA's.) If you dont have access to level 65 spells, there's not a lot of point in levelling up to 65.

And of course, the situation is worse for pure melees (I have one of those, too.) Where the *only* difference was an imperceptable barely parseable increase in your average hit...

I realize we've discussed this before and reached no conclusion, so I wont continue it further here.

*edit* /cough indeed... quite rude. From your list:

12 Healing Adept 3 * optional, actual effect is small *
12 Spell Casting Reeinforcement 3 * very optional *
12 Natural Durability 3 * useless *
8 SCRM * even more optional... 20 aa's for 2 more ticks on sotw? *
10 Planar Power 5 * not needed unless you have the gear *
15 Innate Enlightenment 5 * same. optional.*
12 AHA * optional*

There's 81 aa's I knocked off your *cough* list which have only a very small effect on *actual* every day performance.

*edit* /cough indeed... quite rude. From your list:

12 Healing Adept 3 * optional, actual effect is small *
12 Spell Casting Reeinforcement 3 * very optional *
12 Natural Durability 3 * useless *
8 SCRM * even more optional... 20 aa's for 2 more ticks on sotw? *
10 Planar Power 5 * not needed unless you have the gear *
15 Innate Enlightenment 5 * same. optional.*
12 AHA * optional*

There's 81 aa's I knocked off your *cough* list which have only a very small effect on *actual* every day performance.

Healing Adept effect is small? 19% more healed hp's base per heal is small?

38% more hps with an crit heal, and i didnt even counted Focus into it. I would like to say HA + AHA is way more important than HG + AHG.

SCR3+SCRM = 50% longer buff durations, 50% longer SotW duration. Means also an SotW-Chain last 50% longer.

Natural Durability3 useless? Well, for me thats around 700 HP more or something. I dont call this useless, its one of the most usefull AA's an raiding druid have.

Planar Power 5 = 25 more Stamina = HPS
Planar Power 5 = 25 more Wisdom = More Mana

Innate Enlightenment 5 = 50 more Wisdom = 250 more Mana.

What you call optional i call pretty raidimportant AA's.

I'm fully aware of what they do, thank you. Again, that's my opinion, as a druid and raider since raids were invented in EQ, and until very recently one of the leaders of a top raiding guild on my server. You can take my opinion or not, your choice, but dont pretend that yours is the only one, especially when you dont provide any hard examples where those effects you listed make any difference between success and failure every day on a raid. Yes, once a month perhaps you may find that the additional effect of those listed AA's makes a nice little difference. Maybe. Necessary? No. Useless? No. Optional, all things being equal? Yes.

Now, enough derailing, this has nothing to do with the title or intent of this thread. If you want to discuss the merits of AA's etc, start a new one.

Do you believe that the design of druids causes a built-in bias against them in groups?

Yes. Druids will never heal as effectively as a cleric of the same level so there will generally be more deaths with druids healing. It's a natural consequence. Groups would generally rather have clerics than druids. Is that a bias against druids?

There isn't a great deal to be done to change it. Druids are a strong soloing class and a weak grouping class. You take the rough with the smooth.

If you dont have access to level 65 spells, there's not a lot of point in levelling up to 65.

Complete rubbish. Get yourself from 62 to 65 as fast as you can and get less resists to your spells, all the better stats and numbers, *incredibly* better pickup group invites, better item and money rewards, and lose absolutely nothing. I'm all for players enjoying the game at the lower levels and taking their time to explore, but there's almost nothing you can do at 62-64 that you can't enjoy at 65 as well. My personal experience was to level up slowly in the 60's and in hindsight it was the wrong thing to do no matter how I look back on it.

Druids are a strong soloing class and a weak grouping class.

This used to be a 'fact of life' that most druids could gracefully accept, but ever since SOE began swinging their penalty bat at soloing, it has become increasingly difficult to rationalize the trade-off. Especially considering that the classes who solo more effectively than druids also offer more tangible benefits to groups than we do.

~Firemynd

Complete rubbish. Get yourself from 62 to 65 as fast as you can and get less resists to your spells, all the better stats and numbers, *incredibly* better pickup group invites, better item and money rewards, and lose absolutely nothing.Pffft

I leveled quickly in about a month from 54 to 61, while my partner leveled those same levels painfully over a year. In retrospect, I regret doing so.

While I have all my spells, except Command of Tunare, from 62-64 and and the 65 Legacy of Bracken in the bank, I'm in absolutely no rush to get to 65. Why? So, I have to play exclusively in PoP, and even worse, in pickup groups?

No, thank you.

Or I could play in Acrylia Caverns, Griegs, Nadox like the guild group (65 cleric, 65 ranger or 65 beastlord, 65 beastlord, 65 shaman, 65 mage) does. But at 61, the AA exp in those zones is already not so great. So ... why waste my time there at 65?

EQ is supposed to be enjoyable. I find pickup groups neither fun, nor all that rewarding. Neither is rushing to the "end game level" when you won't be playing "end game."

"Do you believe that the design of druids causes a built-in bias against them in groups?"

Frankly, I don't think there is a built-in bias toward a druids ability. I think it is the history of EQ in general that has cause the bias, and the attitude of some druids that has aided to the problem. I have actually only come up against this once.

"Because druid's healing is so much behind cleric, (no emergency healing option AT ALL) no matter how skilled is the druid accident will happen."

Obviously, you don't have SotW or you wouldn't think that. I use SotW in emergency cases to keep people alive long enough for me to heal them with the appropriate spell.

"Compounding this bias is the potential for drastic differences from one druid to the next even at the same level. There's an insanely wide range in capabilities depending on which AAs the druid has, and to an extent depending on his/her gear (mana, foci, FT, etc)."

I only have 83 AA's and I can tell you that it isn't the AA's or gear that make the druid but the person behind the keyboard. Not to mention that it doesn't matter how many AA's in general a druid has, but where they put those AA's. There are a wide range of druids out there. Some prefer to Nuke, some prefer to Heal, some prefer to DoT, and others prefer Solo. We are a class that is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. The point I'm trying to make here is not that AA's and gear are what make one druid drastically different to another, but their preference of role in the game.

"I also have to comment on this. I don't think it's true. The ability to earn AA is hardly an "uber" only thing, especially when you're talking about something on the order of 50 AA per level.

Earning AAs is where a time-restricted non-uber powergamer shines...."

I disagree. I'm a casual player who realises my abilities. (ie. I don't heal Hard Adv.) I group most of the time. So it usually takes me 3 adv to gain 1 aa, and some nights I only get to do 1 adv. (Some might think I'm complaining, but I'm not. It's just that I go where I will excel, and not where I think I might fail or get someone accidently killed. This is something that not all druids do. I've seen some druids with 300 aa's and wipe out a raid because they think they can chain cast and not get dead.)

"12 Healing Adept 3 * optional, actual effect is small *
12 Spell Casting Reeinforcement 3 * very optional *
12 Natural Durability 3 * useless *
8 SCRM * even more optional... 20 aa's for 2 more ticks on sotw? *
10 Planar Power 5 * not needed unless you have the gear *
15 Innate Enlightenment 5 * same. optional.*
12 AHA * optional*"

HA3 increases KR by 468 hps (although that seems small, it's a good bit when you have to heal an 8K tank. I've been very glad that I got this AA, since a lot of the time I'm usually 1 of 2 lvl 65 Healers on raids or the only lvl 65 Healer. Oh and on my server every High end guild requires their druids to have HA3 and AHA3.
I would agree that the rest is optional.

"Yes. Druids will never heal as effectively as a cleric of the same level so there will generally be more deaths with druids healing. It's a natural consequence. Groups would generally rather have clerics than druids."

This I have proven wrong. I was recruited into the guild I'm in now because I was healing like a cleric (and the 65 Pally I usually group with prefers to just rush every room no matter how many are in it, without a crowd control in group.) I healed so much like a cleric that at the end of the adv, they forgot that I could port us out. LOL Although, you right groups do generally prefer clerics as a healer. Quite frankly, I prefer to have a cleric so I can nuke eventhough I have set my char up for healing for guild raids.

Laliana Silverfangs
65 Druid
Terris Thule

This I have proven wrong.

Not really. By your own admissions, you haven't given yourself a chance to truly prove the statement right or wrong. You said:

"It's just that I go where I will excel, and not where I think I might fail or get someone accidently killed."

One could reasonably argue that your lack of confidence as a healer is evidence that you do not really believe your healing is as effective as a cleric's.

"I'm a casual player who realises my abilities. (ie. I don't heal Hard Adv.)"

I can, and *do* play main healer for Hard adventures. But I can also use my eyeballs and common sense to compare my healing spells to the ones in a cleric's spellbook, and say with absolute certainty that through no fault of my own, I cannot heal as effectively as a cleric.

~Firemynd

While I am not sure I would like levels linked to AA's, what I would like is some way to tell, in general, how many AA a person has. You can see what level they are, but you can't tell the difference (from looking at them, or /who) between a 65 with no AA, and a 65 with 500 AA.

I know they are talking about "custom titles" in OoW. Maybe they should try to resurrect the old Baron/Venerable/Elder thing, but make some new ones (and/or change the numbers for the current ones). They should be granted at much higher intervals. Like every 100 AA, or so. This way you can get a much better idea of who you are inviting to your group.

I liked the idea of Custom titles and wish they'd do some more.

There's quite alot SoE could do on this subject. Lets see, all the information about your char is sat there on the server ready to be used - any of this could be added to the LFG tool and/or a more comprehensive inspect window.

Personally, I'm not a massive fan of the numbers behind the game mechanics appearing too much when I'm playing - I prefer them to be converted (like AA points are to custom titles, or levels into titles).

You could have a new npc at wayfarer camps for example, that when right clicked on would allow you to enquire on a character - a conversion of LDoN advs done to a kind of reputation level among the wayfarers, not disimilar to the rankings list but with more of a roleplay interface.

Alot of the difference comes from gear though. There used to be a time when you could tell what someone was wearing by looking (not inspecting) at them, but there's only a handful of unique looking items per class now.

Another big thing is player ability. While no amount of ability would allow you to make up the difference from Bazaar equipped to GoD equipped, it counts for alot, and the reputation of players and thier guilds amongst the rest of the servers population is often a factor in getting groups.

I basically don't bother going lfg regularly as I've rarely found it a useful way to get groups as a druid. I've still got memories of trying to get my first group in Seb and sitting lfg for hours as people came and went past me, then trying the next day, and the next... I will get groups within my guild and I like doing pickup groups but they almost always start with a couple of guildies and then we grab some other lfg peeps. I understand there has to be an offset on groupability for druids because we can solo pretty well, but I agree with what Firemynd said about it.

My feeling as to why clerics get groups over druids in content where both can heal is this; dying in groups is accepted by players, large amounts of downtime is not.

My other char is a bard with 1/3 as much aa, she gets offers all the time, even when she isn't lfg, and when she goes lfg her average wait is about 10 minutes at a guess - usurped by my own alt!

One could reasonably argue that your lack of confidence as a healer is evidence that you do not really believe your healing is as effective as a cleric's.


OK, I'm sorry I wasn't very clear. I simply meant that as a gamer I don't have the eye-hand coordination to accomplish healing a hard adv, plus I distract easy. Which is what makes me a better nuker. My point is that eventhough a druid has to compensate for not having as extensive a heal line as clerics, it's not impossible for the right druid to heal and not have any deaths. It's all about strategy and finding the tactics for that situation. Don't get me wrong I have heal a few difficult situations where I needed to keep all 5 other ppl in the grp alive, and everyone thought we would wipe out, and we had zero deaths. Anyways, since I've only come across bias once, I don't really feel there is that much bias against us as druids. This is of course guided by my experiences, and others experiences may vary.

Laliana Silverfangs
65 Druid
Terris Thule

Who ever said there was a conspiracy Fairweather. My comment was that there was an institutional bias against druids due to the way the class was designed by SoE. I am the last person to subscribe to conspiracy theories. LoL.