While this is a thread about Class Re-envisioning, I started a new one to separate it from the more general discussion one started earlier, as the purpose of this thread is to get Druids to speak up while the time is right and to get them to go onto the test server when the Druid changes show up.

As a long time programmer I can tell you first hand that the changes SOE is making for the Druid is more involved than it might seem at first glance. With SOE being willing to put in this extra time for Druids, now is the time let SOE developers know what needs fixing and giving good recommendations on what we'd like. Even if you've let them know before, a new communication will help keep them focused on fixing the right things.

1. Please post your recommendations as to how Druid problems should be fixed and let SOE know.

a. My issues are that a Druid needs to be able to heal difficult camps if he or she is to be an effective main healer. I suggested being able to single handedly MH a Tipt trial as a test of whether or not the changes are sufficient.
I really don't have any desire to be main healer for groups that only want to take down ally trash. If I can't get good groups that want to take down rewarding targets, then I'm frankly not interested in being an MH, I'll just put up "DPS only plz" in my LFG tool.
b. Unnerf Healing Gift AA's so that it either works on all Druid heals or twice as often on fixed amount heals.
c. Change percent heals to fixed amount heals that can crit.
d. Add a good low agro Heal over Time spell line.
e. Add a very fast, high hp, low mana heal with a 2 minute recast time as a substitute for no group heals.
f. In dps stance, all Druid damage should be included.

Here is the developer feedback link: http://eqlive.station.sony.com/community/dev_feedback.jsp

Please post what you send to SOE. Let's help them get it right.

Oaklie on Ayoane Ro

I think definately would be nice for Karana to crit =P

Tipt is easy to heal, Ive healed it tons of time with me being the snarer for the pet. Hell, RSS is harder to heal than tipt and I can heal RSS decently. (No, I am not uber, I just have over 8k mana unbuffed.) Uhhhhh what do you mean "unnerf" HG? Percentage heals are coded to not crit, HG isnt the problem, and you cant "unnerf" something that was never nerfed in the first place. Item "E" is just plain retarded.

d. Add a good low agro Heal over Time spell line.
e. Add a very fast, high hp, low mana heal with a 2 minute recast time as a substitute for no group heals.

These have been a gripe of mine for awhile now.
Shaman have HoT..Cleric have HoT..why do druid not have HoT?
Group heal. ya we have SOTW and SOTG.. complete with 20 minute <average> reuse time. NOT an effective group heal.
Sony wants us 80% as effective as a cleric? Good, now give us the dammed spells to make it that way.
While I'm on my fantasy wish list lets add a decent CH..hell most my SI / Clorotrophe and sometimes my NI crit for more then that. 6 - 8K being standard crits for these spell lines. The con side.. they cost heavy in Mana use, so maybe add reducing mana costs of druid spells to be more in line w/ clerics?
DPS.. give me a decent nuke without nerfing the dammed thing to hell and gone.
Simple and easy.
It really is ok for druids to do more then 1500pts damage.. really it is.. no need to keep nerfing us down to keep us under that.
Anyway.. that is my fantasy wish list, no I don't expect sony to take any of this seriously.
After all, we are merely the paying customers. What do we know about what we want? <Sarcasm>

Group heal. ya we have SOTW and SOTG.. complete with 20 minute <AVERAGE>reuse time. NOT an effective group heal.



20 min reuse time?. Hmmm.

I would be happy with just an AA (or a series of AAs) that reduces the reuse timer on SoTW and SoTG. Would be easy to code - and would be a massive improvement.

1) faster casting quick heals
2) CH that heals for more than 5990 max
3) Heal over Time

Give us that and I won't even fuss about how much more mana our heals cost compared to clerics.

Paladins have faster heals than us.
Shaman have HoT.
I don't think this is asking too much.

I would be happy with just an AA (or a series of AAs) that reduces the reuse timer on SoTW and SoTG. Would be easy to code - and would be a massive improvement.



That is a nice idea.

And yes, faster casting, mana reduced spam heals.

My HoT idea =

massive DS (like 400) that also heals the same amount when hit. Limit the # of hits to be in line with other HoT's. Mana ratio should be poor since it is unresistable damage + heal.

Fast casting heal could probably have some recast on it like a pally, but in this case it would have to be a pretty nice heal. Recast would have to be lowish, like 12-15 seconds.

Group heal should be a mana hog SoTW type thing. DS + big regen (250 / tic or whatever + a damage mitigation would be keen (10% mitigating "bark skin")

Of course, I am not really a druid, but that is the "role-play" vision I would see for these types of spells.

Cily

I play a druid. More specifically, a healer druid.

The last thing I want or need are more heals that are a mana pig, slow casting, or slow recast.

I don't need the entire repertoire of a cleric. I do need a few more tools than I have. Most notably, as Silxie stated ... faster casting, mana reduced spam heals. It really sucks to be the healer in a group against Quarm and watch member after member die because my fast heal isn't fast enough.

It's also frustrating time after time to cast a fast patch on a caster only to see it land too late. Mind you, if I anticipate the caster is going to pull aggro and start the heal before she or he is hit, my heal might land in time. The first time. The caster still dies, because that second heal isn't going to land in time :P

I can actually live with a crippled complete heal ... except the mana cost is too high. Drop it to 400 mana ... and I'd be ok. Grudgingly ok, but ok. Until I have to CH that 15k tank. Then I'll go back to scowling at the clerics :P

Even with a Karana's that only costs 400 mana, I'm still not going to heal 80% effective as a cleric. But at least, I'll be semi efficient.

I would prefer HoTs over group heals. Group heals would be nice, but HoTs would be more useful in more situations. Just convert our regen line completely over to HoTs. It will never be noticed we have no regens.

As for fast, mana efficient, patches? It's what we need. But we'll never get them. SOE doesn't believe and will never believe that druids and shaman are healers.

Nor do they seem to believe we are damage dealers. I'm not very happy with the fire line right now. If it's not outright resisted, it's partially resisted, and rarely does full damage. At least the cold line is consistent and almost always lands for full damage. I can nuke an entire Time P1 fight with cold and end up with mana to spare. I can't even get halfway through using fire, and end up doing less damage. I wasn't real happy when I first saw the damage cold does, but I'll take reliability over flash and unpredictability any day.

I'm just really glad I have a pally partner. Together, we almost make a real healer :P

I really like all of the replies. My post was really made from the SOE's statement that they wanted to make Druids 80% as effective as Clerics as main healers. The items I listed were what I thought was needed to make a Druid 80% effective as a Cleric, without turning us into Clerics.

I play a Druid, a dps Druid more specifically, but often the only way to get a group is as MH.:( Like Taeyn I prefer grouping with Pallies. I love their group heal and LoH.

There are two main types of heals [overtime and instant], which are cast on two types of targets [single or group]. This gives 4 combinations. A Cleric has all 4. A druid has only [instant heals on a single target], not counting regen.

I don't count a DS as a heal, I count it as dps.

But I swear I've never seen a Druid single handedly heal a T6 trial, and I've seen plently of Clerics wipe on it.

Regarding HG nerf. Karana heals for 4680 or 75% of the target's hp, whichever is less for a 600 mana. But the definition of HG is "This ability grants you a chance to score an exceptional heal at 3, 6 and 10 percent. An exceptional heal doubles the healing value of the spell." If Druids are to be a healing class, then this AA shouldn't just apply to half our heals. Those AA's cost me just as much work to get as they cost a Cleric.

With 25% healing focus, HG 3 and 5k mana, I crit a fast heal for about the same amount that Karana heals for. There are plenty of 12k tanks these days and if a druid is to be MH on mobs that hit for 1000, then there has to be some changes in Druid heals.

In WoS I was the only healer in the group and we decided to pull a named. Spamming fast heals, even with the crits, the tank was going down faster than I could heal. It just wasn't pretty. With the right group, a Druid can be an MH on some tough mobs, but not without backup heals from somewhere and nice tank.

What I don't get is the DPS complaint. Do you guys use Hand of Ro? On mobs that last over a minute, add Immolation of Sun to it for added FR debuff. Lands every time. Trouble getting Hand of Ro on mob? Do Immolation first, then Hand, then Corona and nuke away.

I really love what they did with the spells. Especially because fire focus is a lot easier to get than lvl 70 ice focus.. from Bazu Hide Tunic or Eye of Chailak. Even GoD focii work better, because spell is lvl 69.

As for healing.. I don't really care if I can't keep 6k/1300AC tank alive in WoS, the zone is not designed for such a tank. What I can do is keep my group up on Quarm / Feratha / Chailak with no problems so that clerics can focus on keeping main tank up.

Now, when I get 25% more healing / damage, I'm gonna be real good at what I do.

Faster, Mana reduced heals. A group heal would be a very welcome change as well.

its called Nature's recovery and the healing shows up with the new HoT messages so we do already have !!! ONE !!! HoT granted yes it sucks the duration isnt very long and it only does 30 hps a tick so they did put it there. they should make a whole spell line out of it and up the power so we have HoT.

instead of making new heal spells how about they adjust our regular spells? faster cast? more hps? balance out the mana? they'd have to put a cap on spell haste focus for our heals so we arent faster than a cleric but they should make the spells fast cast enough so that you wouldnt have to rely on super high end gear with the focus on it to reach that point.

oh i was reading thru the list of the Veterans Rewards thingy and one of them sounds VERY CLOSE to the "stance" thing. ah HA here it is.

Year 7: Intensity of the Resolute: Increases the power of the player’s abilities and heals substantially for 5 minutes once every 24 hours while the player is surrounded by a glow of energy

i'd bet 3 squirrels and 2 racoons thats a small test of our new stance thing only without the penalty

Divine arb > all other heals.

Unless we get massive hitpoint buffs, and %age rez, we are never going to threaten clerics on groupability. That much said, give us heals which can cope better in higher end zones.

Can I heal in RS? Damn straight I can, but I do need to med every 5-10 minutes due to the excessive mana cost of KR and its craptastic amount of healing. I'm reasonably well geared, 9100mana with C, maxed FT, only lacking a maelins methodical item for regen of mana afaik. Will this be much fixed by stances? Depends how they are implemented, if its only a %age heal increaser, then I'm a little better off but still need to med every 7-12 minutes b/c I'm still sucking 600 mana per heal, if they also add a %age mana decrease to heals... things may be better, although still not utterly fixed, just like fixed on a grouping basis.

I'd really really like to see a decent group heal, be it instant, or a variation on the sotw theme, for raids primarily, nothing I have at my disposal allows me much scope to help during AE raids of any sort of length, if I go for chlorotrope/SI then I'm oom and everyone is dead well before the end of the raid, on mobs like chail/feratha I can cope jsut fine CHing anyone who gets low if they have the intelligence to hide from ae when their hps start getting a bit knackered, but in other more extreme AEs I might aswell jsut go afk and get rezzed later.

Year 7: Intensity of the Resolute: Increases the power of the player’s abilities and heals substantially for 5 minutes once every 24 hours while the player is surrounded by a glow of energy

i'd bet 3 squirrels and 2 racoons thats a small test of our new stance thing only without the penalty

No penalty?
You mean playing for 6 years and promising to play for another is not a penalty at all?


You are right though that it sounds like a stance effect


Eri

Hello all .. this is the first time i post here, although i read you since a long time: I always played druid on Tholuxe Paells, now am 68 of the 5th season.

One reason i always enjoyed druid: FREEDOM
1- be where u want to, or quickly get there; explore
2- group if u feel like and u get invited, else solo.
3- have a wide range of tactics to choose from and be able to be creative
4- risk, risk, risk .. with great rewarding exitement when win
5- go around the world questing duoing with my best friend a pally

downside of my druid life
6- pull, die, port pok, shout WTB rez, port cleric, get rez, port pok, shout WTB c3, port back, repeat (1 hour gone) :)

The highpoint of my toon is when i soloed or duoed most of my epic 1.0 at 51. Or when I soloed all my elysian armor. Or when i was exiting tunnel in DL with wolf form and levi and admiring the view jumping from peak to peak. Sometimes porkupining, root rotting, sometimes running around struggling to charm a mob or quadding in the middle of adds (remember Emerald Jungle gorillas?), sometimes joining group i found in place. Was a LOT of fun. Got stuck with epic when raid support was required and fun became quickly frustration. Took 1 year to get last 2 drops.

Took a pause .. when i came back and progressed everything was different.
I quickly leveled, but for every additional level i get the less i felt independent. I am feeling that all the options and the freedom I had that characterized the life of a druid are progressively going away.

1 -To hunt my new spells i have to go to OOW, so i am FORCED to hunt in certain zones.
2 -In high lev (useful) zones, druids cant use theirs abilities: SUMMON SUMMON SUMMON grr: charm doesnt work (in PoFire?? cant get there!) , root rot is gone for most mobs (summon), quadding bye bye (too many HP).. lol i remember when i was CHARM-FEAR kiting white hoppers in mons lethalis! so cant solo any more. (oh yes .. root rotting NC mobs yawn). I want my playgrounds back !
3- cannot solo, I MUST group .. but groups often call a druid as last option. The have so many specific requirements that a druid just doesnt fit (FD puller, tank, healer, slower, mezzer, dps .. add secondary tank and 1 more dps and u need already 8 toons in one group :). Also, groups have people getting in and out all the time. Only way to get invite is to sit there LFG and beg to group (without being too pushy though :) and hope that they dont want to wait a replacement to come from pok .. BUT ANYONE can come from pok superfast now lol... so i used to sit there while replacements come and go. Now that people know me its better, but its time to get runes in MPG .. never invited there .. all again lol. OR when i got really bored, i would try pulling a mob just to get busy getting rez (no not really, but usually ended that way :)
4- in my druid life i usually got a group when group was already formed and needed to fill up, VERY RARELY when group was being designed in first place .. unless i formed it. But it even happened to me that i formed a group, then everyone suddently disbanded, they grouped together, got a cleric there and went doing DON living me in the cold. GRR

In conclusion, of the 5 things I listed above that defined my fun as a druid, NONE is still there:
1- explore .. can a bit "hail shadowhunter .. /con .. reloading ... " :)
2- FORCED to beg for group and sit respectfully and ready for kind invites
3- FORCED to play either as healer replacement or dps replacement .. no tactics, no creativity.
4- risk=death now .. loss of time. no excitement
5- duoing with my best friend pally. Cant need slower. sigh

I DONT FEEL FREE ANYMORE :( .. pissed off because i lost the feeling of my class. I keep playing though .. still have to see some of the world.. and how it feels to be necro. I group with necros with 6 levels less and they can do more things lol.

The way of the living nature betrayed me.
I am going to seek freedom in magical death.

Cheers to all, hope i didnt bore u to death

In short, my point is that i dont care about DPS, HPS or whatever. I just think that Druid class is all about freedom, feeling the wind in my face and doing things in nature and with the power of nature. Alone or helping others. That was my fun and that is what i want SOE to give me back.

Dorda

What I don't get is the DPS complaint. Do you guys use Hand of Ro? On mobs that last over a minute, add Immolation of Sun to it for added FR debuff. Lands every time. Trouble getting Hand of Ro on mob? Do Immolation first, then Hand, then Corona and nuke away.
In a group I use Hand of Ro, even if I'm not expecting to cast Summer's Flame. Being I am usually snaring in addition to being main healer, I don't tend to cast any other debuffs. I'm already pushing it on aggro, so I tend to Swarm Death instead of nuke as it is. On Time raids though, I don't even have a debuff mem'd.

So ... after the patch, Summer's Flame was doing 2080 damage. When I first saw that, I thought OMG! Not that's an upgrade! But, then I noticed it was never consistent. Most often it was between 1700ish and 1900ish, with an occasional 250 or so damage. About as often as I'd get 2080, I'd get be resisted or do only 250 or so damage.

Meanwhile, Winter's Frost was pretty consistent at 1357 damage. Well ... um. I finally looked at Lucy, and was surprised to discover Summer's Flame does 1600 damage, not 2080.

/blush

My mask has Fury of Ro. I ... uh ... didn't know it was there.

/crawls under a rock

In short, my point is that i dont care about DPS, HPS or whatever. I just think that Druid class is all about freedom, feeling the wind in my face and doing things in nature and with the power of nature. Alone or helping others. That was my fun and that is what i want SOE to give me back.



Amen

For those who mentioned it, you are right. Freedom has been the best point of being a Druid. And yes, it does feel gone.

The pathing of mobs has been changed to eliminate quad kiting and in some zones, it seems like every mob summons. Even in the new DoN zones the animals aren't animals, so we can't charm them. Though they sure do look like animals to me.

Freedom to be able to go somewhere new and solo would be nice.

afaik nothing in DoN summons unless it is a named.