Looking at the title, I'm fairly sure you're thinking this is another rant about how druids suck and need to be rebalanced and improved. It's not.

There's nothing that I hate more than druids complaining they can't do something. Ya know, maybe your gear and AAs might not be up to par with what's needed in a zone and if that's a problem it's somethign you can deal with. A druid who just hit 70 today and has 15 AAs has no chance of being a main healer in riftseekers, mpg, or any other end game zone that I hear people whining about. Yes, whining. I see a total of 200+ zones and you want to complain that you can't heal in 5 of them. There's no reason to claim this is an uber vs casual thing either. All the "ubers" did the same stuff the casuals are doing, they just did it a while ago. I did my fair share of WoS, NC, HK, LDoNs, PoJ, PoV, and BoT. Don't complain now because you can't skip some of those. Most of those are laughable exp now especially wen you consider how many people like exping there. My deal is, if I could do it... so can you.

Skill comes with practice. If you can't show a semblance of skill after you hit 58, a druid probably isn't the class for you. Whining that druids need more powerful heals or nukes isn't gonna help you if you don't know how to use them anyways. Learn to play a druid to it's fullest including but not limited to root crowd control, kiting, root-rot, healing and dpsing in a group. I've seen a bunch of druids recently who think playing a druid means nuking, dotting, healing, and soloing... that's part of it, but that's not enough to be what I'd call a real druid. It takes a helluva lot of practice and focus to play a druid to its max potential and in all honestly, I'll be the first to admit I am not a perfect druid, I cannot play my class to the best it can be and I most certainly am not the best druid in the game. But I'd like to say I have a damn good grasp on the fundementals and I know how to play.

Gear comes with time. Characters are given a weapon, a tunic, a backpack (nowadays), and some food and drink and bandages to start with. I don't see anybody starting out with more than that unless you have a friend who's twinking you. As you go through the game you'll find upgrades. There isn't an item in the game that you can't go out and get one of unless it's been taken out. Don't expect 100hp gear to be easy to get. It wasn't easy to find outside of raids until Omens and now most of the content I've seen in DoN and DoD gives out 100+ hp stuff with 1 group stuff! If you can get decent gear with one hell of a lot less effort nowadays than most of the druids did who are up in the "uber" category now.

The druid class has changed a lot over the years. I haven't been witness to most of it first hand, but quite frankly I've seen enough to know that it doesn't matter what they do to druids, the people who can play a druid can still play a druid. There was a recent patch DOUBLED the heal power of some heals and gave a boost to pretty much all of them (except 10sec ones), so there should be 0 complaining about healing on anything other than ~possibly~ end game content. I healed HK with half the power of healing you have today, I don't want to hear anybody whine about that crap.

I've stated my take on druid dps, but here it is again. Druids are a > Priest < class. Our primary function is NOT to do dps. Our primary function is to HEAL. When healing is not needed we have the option to do dps. People whining druids don't do well enough on dps, what the hell does it matter how much dps we do?! There's the argument that reducing mob health can help save on heals. That's true, but only in rare cases. You still have to expend mana to nuke and our nukes are significantly slower than our heals. The only time I can really see a nuke being used over a heal is if you can time one to land that makes the mob run, and in that case you can save all of 3 seconds of healing.

For the casual vs hardcore debate, people who put more effort into a game deserve to get more out of it. There's plenty of content is every expansion to try out and quite frankly, what does it matter if they only put in end game content in a new expansion? Nobody is forcing you to go buy that new expansion except yourself, so save yourself some money and enjoy the hundreds of hours of gameplay that's already there! If you're willing to devote the time to play hardcore, more power to ya but if you want to play the game and get the ph47 lewts you'd better not expect them to be easy to come by.

It seems that everywhere I look, especially on the eqlive boards, I see 15 different people whining about 15 different things and telling the other 14 people that they're wrong. I see the druid class as a great and powerful one that isn't fully appreciated even by the people who play them. I love this class for what it is, not what people think it should be so quit whining and play the game.

what the hell does it matter how much dps we do?!

You relise by making a druid you traded your ability to canni for the ability to cause explicit damage, right?

You relise by making a druid you traded your ability to canni for the ability to cause explicit damage, right?

Seeing as how druids never had canni afaik, and our explicit damage is fine as it is, I'm not sure what your point is. I never traded anything that I'm aware of. I chose to play a druid for what a druid could do, nothing less and nothing more.

Seeing as how druids never had canni afaik, and our explicit damage is fine as it is, I'm not sure what your point is. I never traded anything that I'm aware of. I chose to play a druid for what a druid could do, nothing less and nothing more.



The point is that druids traded up awesome heals from clerics, and abilities like slow and Canni from shamen, for the ability to do some heavy DPS.




As far as the "you're a priest, you're supposed to heal, not nuke" statement, you kind of contradicted yourself. You basically say we don't need any more powerful heals because we can nuke, but we don't need to worry about nuking cause our primary funcion is to heal.

You relise by making a druid you traded your ability to canni for the ability to cause explicit damage, right?

Unless you can show me this being posted by a dev I dare say this is a rather speculative statement.

Perhaps we traded our ability to canni for our ability to control rain? Or have larger heal spells? Or be wood elves which are way cooler than any race shaman can be?

Maybe druids weren't being considered at all when canni was invented and it was the shamans tradeoff for the pet thats far from on par with the other pet classes ( no booboo bitchin please. We are NOT a pet class ).

PS: Nice post Dayuna. Was well thought out

Unless you can show me this being posted by a dev I dare say this is a rather speculative statement.

Perhaps we traded our ability to canni for our ability to control rain?

Canni = Level 24 spell that was there from the start IIRC

Ability to control rain = Level 56 Spell

Maybe druids weren't being considered at all when canni was invented and it was the shamans tradeoff for the pet thats far from on par with the other pet classes ( no booboo bitchin please. We are NOT a pet class ).

Or maybe the point of the druid class was to toss up healing power for damage power.

Ok since I'm a nice guy and you require a lot of long winded detail...


Your argument about druids being in balance doesn't hold much water if you say DPS isn't a major componet of our class. What do druids have to offer over shamans? Explicit dps, DS, charming, snaring, and ports. DS hasn't scaled with the content, so it's more or less useless now a days (ie I could 10 groups and not cast DS on the tank or group, and 9 out of 10 wouldn't even notice.) Ports are nice to have, but with the transportation additions and zone/port layout in newer content their value is lowered. While snaring is more important nowadays than it has been in the past, it's still not a top concern of groups, since the variety of ways to stop a mob from running away have deversified. And of course, charming has little to no value in newer content.


So, that leaves us at the point where the only thing we have over shamans is burst dps. If you really don't care about how much dps we do, why the hell don't you reroll as a shaman. The only major thing we still have left over them is the ability to push our (explicit) dps almost in the 4-digit range.

[QUOTE=Antler]Canni = Level 24 spell that was there from the start IIRC

Ability to control rain = Level 56 Spell



Um,
I think you perhaps took me a bit literally here.
My point was that I don't believe canni is necessarily somthing to offset any specific druid ability or spell. Everyone always compares our abilities which are radically different and I don't think they are accurate or relevent comparisons.

I happen to play both classes and I see no real similarities other than we can both heal and both SoW. I consider each a completely seperate entity with no relation or comparison to the other

I agree 100% with this post. Our dps should be average at best and not trying to challenge caster dps such as Wizard or Mage.

Ok since I'm a nice guy and you require a lot of long winded detail...


Your argument about druids being in balance doesn't hold much water if you say DPS isn't a major componet of our class. What do druids have to offer over shamans? Explicit dps, DS, charming, snaring, and ports. DS hasn't scaled with the content, so it's more or less useless now a days (ie I could 10 groups and not cast DS on the tank or group, and 9 out of 10 wouldn't even notice.) Ports are nice to have, but with the transportation additions and zone/port layout in newer content their value is lowered. While snaring is more important nowadays than it has been in the past, it's still not a top concern of groups, since the variety of ways to stop a mob from running away have deversified. And of course, charming has little to no value in newer content.


Druids traded super heals for utility as far as I'd be willing to define it like that. We are primarily a healing class (though there are some that choose to focus on the offensive side of things). DPS is a component of our class, it's a part of every class, but it's not nearly as important as our utility. Dps is to a druid, as I've said several times before, something we ~can~ do if we don't have anything else. How significant that dps is doesn't mean much. You see clerics nuking between heals don't you? Same kind of deal.

So, that leaves us at the point where the only thing we have over shamans is burst dps. If you really don't care about how much dps we do, why the hell don't you reroll as a shaman. The only major thing we still have left over them is the ability to push our (explicit) dps almost in the 4-digit range.

I'm not the person with problems involving our dps or healing capacity.

I agree 100% with this post. Our dps should be average at best and not trying to challenge caster dps such as Wizard or Mage.

Umm not sure who implied we should do as much dps as a "wizard" or "mage."

But anyways, I'ld just be happy if they progressed our dps -- wizards and mages both got spells with high base damage than their comparable OoW ones, however dawnstikes base damage is actually lower than our comparable OoW nuke. How the hell is that balance?\

I'm not the person with problems involving our dps or healing capacity.

Not saying I'm not happy with them ethier. But that doesn't change the fact our healing capibilities are not balanced in comparison to shaman heals.

Not saying I'm not happy with them ethier. But that doesn't change the fact our healing capibilities are not balanced in comparison to shaman heals.

How we stack up with shamans is not mentioned anywhere in the original post. There may be a huge discrepancy between us and shaman just like there's a huge difference in druid vs. cleric heals, but that doesn't mean druid can't heal for every exp zone in the game at some point in the progression from lvl 1 new character to lvl 70 anguish+ geared.

I didn't mean to 'reply' to your post Kamion, i was merely agreeing with the first post.

There may be a huge discrepancy between us and shaman just like there's a huge difference in druid vs. cleric heals

I didn't read your entire first post, so correct me if I'm wrong... Isn't your argument that druids are balanced? Sorry but there's no way to determine balance without an comparison.

Compare druid and shaman healing capabilities in PoP. Than compare druid and shaman healing capabilities in OoW+. There is no way you can conclude that both sides scaled evenly.

but that doesn't mean druid can't heal for every exp zone in the game at some point in the progression from lvl 1 new character to lvl 70 anguish+ geared.

In a realistic sense, the ability to sustain is usually valued over the ability to do.

About 30 minutes after I posted that, I realized that the title is somewhat inaccurate. The post is basically telling people to quit whining.

The main points I was made were balancing druids vs. content... not vs. other classes. Trying to point and say "they have x that's better than us!" doesn't help or prove anything. We can do our job effectively enough right now to suffice.

As for sustainability, smart use of mana can keep a decent tank up in RS indefinintely. At lower levels sustainability might be an issue, but lower levels have significantly less down time due to mana pool size and higher % mana regen with kei and the like. Man, I miss the feeling of being level 45 with kei... "OMG I CAN'T RUN OUT OF MANA!"

for the most part, i am pretty happy with druids, too.

but i do agree our dps is falling. yes we are a priest class, and we should not match wizards, tho that is really becoming a stretch with some of our guild wizards critting for well past 20k. i think we should come a helluva lot closer to mages, tho, nuke-for-nuke (pre-pet). i mean, i can still beat most mages, but that is just because, on the whole, they seem to be lazy bastards or they are playing unf unf games with their pets, i dunno.

i prefer to think the proof is in the AAs, we get plenty of offensive AAs, not just healing ones.

i agree there is a lot of whining. trying to pick the real concerns from the chaff can be hard.

and for those that bitched and whined about pets and boo boo and got us the craptacular waste of AAs for DoD (BooBoo V2) i'd also like to extend a hearty ***SMURF***

I swear to god everytime a whines comes up here in TDG or in EQlive druid boards (which i frequently browse but i don't bother replying to) it makes me realize how much i LOVE my class, because quite frankly i must be playing a god-like druid to not understand at all why people whine so much about the class i'm playing.

In other words and to put it bluntly, it is my sole opinion that those people that whine about druids do so because they (for a lack of a better term) suck at it.

asking for fair progress isn't an unreasonable request

what the hell does it matter how much dps we do?!

I solo a lot so it matters to me. can't remember the last time I healed a mob to death for experience.

I don't go into threads with the attitude druids are unbalanced. I like my class just fine the way it is (balance by utility) and don't typically complain about it unless it's outright broken in the code via a bug.

I don't, however, agree with your post (the DPS statement anyway). you're defining what a druid is for every druid out there, which makes your point no better than that of someone that complains that their druid SHOULD be better at this or that.

clearly, the only one that decides what tools a druid has in their toolbox is SOE. what is done with the tools given is entirely up to the player.

I solo a lot also. I hate the whole healing argument with druids. If I wanted to play a cleric, I would have rolled a cleric. I enjoy nuking AND healing, and am not asking to be on a par with a cleric. I do not have Reptile Skin yet ( Work schedule and finding a good group for the progression, or guildie on at the time is so far no go), so I can't tell if it works as the hot a lot of druids have asked for. A decent HOT would be one of the only requests I had, healing wise
As for class gripes, sure, there are a few things I would change, but for the most part, I wouldn't. Who cares how much damage Boo Boo does, or how much wizzies out damage? Dps wise. we really have to try to get very high damage (Or be properly AAed), short term anyways. I would be happy if they would lift the indoor restrictions on Harmony and Nature's Serenity, but I understand that doing so would cause a harmonic shift in the universe, and create even more class imbalance!!

I solo a lot so it matters to me. can't remember the last time I healed a mob to death for experience.

I solo a fair amount too, but sustainable dps is easy whist soloing. Some classes kill faster, some kill more sustainably, some just own stuff (<3 necros).

I don't, however, agree with your post (the DPS statement anyway). you're defining what a druid is for every druid out there, which makes your point no better than that of someone that complains that their druid SHOULD be better at this or that.


How is claiming that we can dps when we aren't healing any worse than claiming druids need large scale improvements? Last time I checked we are a ~priest~ class and as such, our healing and curing abilities are emphasized.

clearly, the only one that decides what tools a druid has in their toolbox is SOE. what is done with the tools given is entirely up to the player.

Precisely.

I do not have Reptile Skin yet ( Work schedule and finding a good group for the progression, or guildie on at the time is so far no go), so I can't tell if it works as the hot a lot of druids have asked for. A decent HOT would be one of the only requests I had, healing wise

It acts very similarly to a HoT spell, lasts longer, and on tanks with crit heal AAs it can proc for a crit heal of 1200. It's a great spell and pretty well implemented, though it's mana cost is a bit high for the average druid to use continuously.

How is claiming that we can dps when we aren't healing any worse than claiming druids need large scale improvements? Last time I checked we are a ~priest~ class and as such, our healing and curing abilities are emphasized.

I guess I don't entirely understand this statement in the context of what I was saying. we have nukes, naturally we can dps. I'm not advocating anything but free choice to use what tools we're given. if you want only to heal, load all heal spells. if you don't wanna nuke, don't nuke. if you don't wanna dot, don't dot.

if saying we're a priest class means that our only role is healing, wtf aren't we all clerics?

Ummmm .. i think we went from "druids can do it all" as it was until lev 52
to "some druids can do almost all" at lev 70.

ALL druids used to be able to
-pull
-tank (porcupine)
-emergency handling:CC with root/AOE root, evac
-charm /fear
-nuke/rot kite
-burst dps
-efficient dps
-heal
-patch heal
-port
-buff
-used to be one of best tank support class
-used to be best duo class with pally

For us "sucking" druids (i.e. unable to dedicate our life to be in uber raiding guild, but that until lev 52 we were able to charmkite, rootrot, quadkite solo and bring lotsa utilitity to a group) there is little left.

Now please, honestly, how much of the above power is left to us?

Personally i mourn especially the loss of charm in useful high end content, which was huge fun for me, and the loss of CC ability. I was so much hoping spore spiral to give us back that ability to be totally disappointed by yet another useless spell =(
About charm, i think in dreadspire there is a DC bat for us .. have to get the aa and try (left it behind as it wasnt of any use any more)

For us "sucking" druids (i.e. unable to dedicate our life to be in uber raiding guild, but that until lev 52 we were able to charmkite, rootrot, quadkite solo and bring lotsa utilitity to a group) there is little left.

If you think that's what I meant, you're in the wrong track my friend. I was speaking ability-wise.

Gear does not make a druid, nor being in a raiding guild. It is what we can do with what we have that makes us "skilled". Any druid that is good as what they can do will only complain a tad as opposed to druids that log on to a board and start whining about everything instead of going in game and learning new things and/or how to do them.

Nimchip you did not reply my question though ..

do you still charmkite?????

There were some things we could do at level 52 (on what was then high end content) that we cannot do anymore on nowadays high end content ..not because of skill but because of game design, can we agree on this at least?

as of learning .. in LDONS when puller was bringing a train i could use the root (AOE root later) spell to save group in more than one occasion .. now tell me how i can do the same thing in nowaday's high end content .. this is just an example. Yes i can cast skin of reptile on tank, use group regen aa, the low aggro aa and start spammin heals but the fun factor is not the same imo. Its a lost ability.

Or i am entirely, cluelessly wrong .. we can still cover a CC role and i simply dont know how. So please please Nimchip if i am just a noob teach me something please and explain how a druid can do some CC nowadays.

Or i am entirely, cluelessly wrong .. we can still cover a CC role and i simply dont know how. So please please Nimchip if i am just a noob teach me something please and explain how a druid can do some CC nowadays
Well, I don't call people noobs (unless they are my friends!), so please don't take me as telling you that duids most definately CAN crowd control as calling you a noob.

However, Druids can CC. I CC for my groups in RS, MPG, Nest (in the Nest druids are powa CC'ers) all the time. Just cast snare, it will aggro on you (if you get snare on right away, then just hold aggro with hand of ro, and flame lick.) Once it gets away from the group try and root it, otherwise just kite it.

Thanks for the explanation .. well i thought moving around RSS kiting was not a good idea as it would bring more adds.. and mobs are faster than i am and summon killing me instantly. I pulled there a bit, every time snare is resisted i am dead. But well i'll try again when i'll have better gear.
I still have to try the nest, seems a nice place for us

Call of Karana lets you charmkite Nightstalkers in PoN
Command of Tunare lets you chamkite frogs in PoS
Nature's Beckon lets you charm somewhere in PoF if I remember what I heard correctly.

Charming isn't dead, just a bit outdated since there aren't a lot of options post-PoP.

We can root CC, even got a new spell to help us do it (assuming the Knockback effect works). Honestly, sometimes I wish I didn't have spell casting subtlety so I could gank aggro and root CC better. But the art of root CC is not dead by any means.


Here's a funny story:
SK, rogue, and shaman being boxed by rogue in WoS.
random_player tells them ,'you guys can only take those named cause of your uber gear!'
group takes off gear and pulls a named.
30 seconds later...
You gain group experience.
random_player tells them,'WTF... no way!'
random_player gates.
(yes, this is a true story and it actually happened)

Skill and AAs will determine what you can do. Gear only determines how long you can do it. And I can't stress that enough.

Skill and AAs will determine what you can do. Gear only determines how long you can do it. And I can't stress that enough.

day I have tears

Oh! I forgot to add to that last post:

Being a priest means that healing/curing is emphasized, not all we can do =p

Charming isn't dead, just a bit outdated since there aren't a lot of options post-PoP.

Wouldn't them not putting much effort into making it a useful ability classify it as a dying ability?

Also keep in mind most charm's in oow+ content have capped max hits (usually ~1/3 of their normal max hit.)

Also keep in mind most charm's in oow+ content have capped max hits (usually ~1/3 of their normal max hit.)
THIS was one of the things that also bothered me, although I am pretty sure when the nerf bat hit, it started with the enchanters, as I remeber when Gates was still relatively new, chanters charming the hynids and pookas and just decimating everything in their path. But still, I charmed a puma in the Ascent, and uncharmed it was hitting me for aorund 300, charmed, not so much

i would also like to see more things flagged as animals. Our swarm-type spells cause wasp/bee type damage, so why then can we not control insects? I rarely charm anymore (Missing the lvl 70 charm curse my unlucky streak in glowing rolls), but when I do, it is in places like the Ascent, and other Don areas, for progression. (Maybe it's just me, but while there are no pathing problems, it is a pita to root/rot in most Don areas, and not get an add, or at least for the snowfoot task it was)

As for the kiting in RSS and MPG for CC, i am guessing no damage kiting was implied, as most of these mobs can nearly oneround me (I stun easy lol, well the RSS mobs anyways, I can take some shots from most MPG mobs)

Wouldn't them not putting much effort into making it a useful ability classify it as a dying ability?


We can still do it at the appropriate levels? It's not as useful to the highest level druids as it was then, but I can't remember any time actually charming in a group besides tipt/vxed tbh. Soloing with it has stayed pretty much the same as far as I can tell and druids still utilize the skill for said exp spots above.


i would also like to see more things flagged as animals. Our swarm-type spells cause wasp/bee type damage, so why then can we not control insects? I rarely charm anymore (Missing the lvl 70 charm curse my unlucky streak in glowing rolls), but when I do, it is in places like the Ascent, and other Don areas, for progression. (Maybe it's just me, but while there are no pathing problems, it is a pita to root/rot in most Don areas, and not get an add, or at least for the snowfoot task it was)

On the issues list and actually something that would make the game a bit more entertaining!

As for the kiting in RSS and MPG for CC, i am guessing no damage kiting was implied, as most of these mobs can nearly oneround me (I stun easy lol, well the RSS mobs anyways, I can take some shots from most MPG mobs)

When was kiting mentioned in relation to CC? I'm talking ganking fast aggro, running it far enough that the group won't be taking hits from it and root it. If you're good at root CC you won't take a hit except on resists maybe. Kiting in order to CC mobs wouldn't work too well in MPG or RSS primarily due to the zone design, halls are not very conducive to kiting =/

Here's a funny story:
SK, rogue, and shaman being boxed by rogue in WoS.
random_player tells them ,'you guys can only take those named cause of your uber gear!'
group takes off gear and pulls a named.
30 seconds later...
You gain group experience.
random_player tells them,'WTF... no way!'
random_player gates.
(yes, this is a true story and it actually happened)

Skill and AAs will determine what you can do. Gear only determines how long you can do it. And I can't stress that enough.

ahah .. probably if they would have been SK, rogue and druid they would all be dead instead without gear .. with 2K manapool .. 3 heals =)

Still no answer.. do our class leaders agree we have LOST abilities when doing stuff in interesting (highend) zones?

The only really new ability we have gained since POP imo is skin of the reptile .. big change .. allowes us to heal/tank stuff that was impossible before and its a great asset to a group. I want to see more of these improvements , 1 every 3-4 expansions is a bit too little imo to compensate what we lost.

Oh! I forgot to add to that last post:

Being a priest means that healing/curing is emphasized, not all we can do =p

Not so sure I can buy into this. We are a "priest" class because that really only defines us as healers via a stereotype of priests as healers and that really depends on what fantasy series you base that stereotype on. A strong argument can be made we are wizards that heal based on Lord of the Rings where the line between wizard and druids is blurred (Radagast the brown) and the Arthur Legends, Merlin is often dipicted as a druid.

In the world of Everquest:

As it used to be IMO: Wizards were suppose to be the caster dps. Mages and Druids trade off dps for other utilities. We started off with very similiar nuking abilities to mages but mages got pets and we got heals, ports and snares. We were (are) also split from mages that we cold/fire nuke while they magic/fire nuke. Or you can look at is as Clerics are the best healers, druids and shaman trade off healing for other utilities.

Druids used to be nukers that had the ability to patch heal (b/c after lvl 35ish your heal wans't that great), snare, port -- maybe i'm mistaken but we used to be more efficent at nuking than healing back velious and before. Pretty much a predominately soloer's class.

Around late Luclin we got redefined as healers with nukes, ports and snare. PoP we kinda slipped into a raid utility class and we have kinda been there ever since, but now with massive ae's and the increase in shaman healing that definition is changing again.

I'm not whining, I like my druid but you gotta roll with the punches. Right now we are on the fringes of balance with respect to Cleric, Shaman and Mages; most likely in another expansion they are gonna have to address how we relate to healing & nuking yet again. Stances would be an interesting path but who knows.

Here's one for a DPS argument. A cleric not too long ago supposedly soloed Vindi (although from what i gathered, a lot of said clerics dps came from his DS) Now a cleric IMO shouldn't be capable of that kind of damage (from what i remeber, VIndi has a decent regen, plus I was sure his guards where tethered, so I was curious as to how he was pulled solo also..) My point with this is if a cleric can drop a mob that requires a good bit of dps to put down, AND heal effectively, I don't see them having much of a leg to stand on with balance arguments.

Still no answer.. do our class leaders agree we have LOST abilities when doing stuff in interesting (highend) zones?

We haven't "lost" anything. Some spells have lost usefulness in current content but they still work in the content they were made for. We've gained a lot in the last 3-4 expansions, you're neglecting that our heals and nukes have scaled up, AA abilities including Call of the Wild, SotG, CoS, Bear AA pet, and more, knockback root, snare with a resist check mod, a DA type spell, improved buffs... we've certainly gained a lot more, and I can't say we've lost much of anything.

As for clerics soloing Vindi... .Clerics have a higher ac and the use of HoT spells. I wouldn't be surprised if the cleric let the reverse DSs take out Vindi while only self-healing. His regen might be large, but he hits fast enough that I'm sure the DS could outstrip the regen tbh. I would think a better question to ask the cleric would be how long did it take?

I would think a better question to ask the cleric would be how long did it take?

Would take a cleric about 13 minutes, assuming they have good DS clickes, latent DS + potion - and assuming WoR procs land fine (which wouldn't be a problem with vindi.)

We haven't "lost" anything. Some spells have lost usefulness in current content but they still work in the content they were made for. We've gained a lot in the last 3-4 expansions, you're neglecting that our heals and nukes have scaled up, AA abilities including Call of the Wild, SotG, CoS, Bear AA pet, and more, knockback root, snare with a resist check mod, a DA type spell, improved buffs... we've certainly gained a lot more, and I can't say we've lost much of anything.


99% is just updates to let us do still SOMETHING in uptodate content

skin of sreptile is an upgrade indeed, can tank stuff i could not without.

our heals and nukes have just scaled up - MIN UPDATE, else class oblivion, nukes and heals didnt scale as much as shammies / mages had
so our relative hps and dps went down.

AA abilities including

Call of the Wild, - ghetto 0% rez every 10 minutes, nice useful side utility ability to have if cleric/pally goes down. Takes 50 minutes to call a full group lol

SotG - yep hot .. every 10 minutes .. and much less than shammie hot. Didnt scale to current content.

CoS - umm whats this?

Bear AA pet - nice short dps but cant tank for more than 0.0001 s.. compare to mage/necro pet at 70.

knockback root - knockback broken, range far too short, cast time and reload far too long for group ghetto cc , duration far too short to solo( better savage root in most situations.. but savage breaks). Most tanks ask me NEVER to root because it messes up aggro. Shammie or cleric root holds instead ... saw in the hive WE DONT HAVE ROOT ANY MORE.

snare with a resist check mod - due update to content (group only), ensnare was much better with 15 min duration, cant solo with this unless u cast this and overwrite with ensnare (spell slots???). WE HAVE ONLY CRIPPLED SNARE FOR SOLOING.

a DA type spell - decent stuff, lasts 15 seconds against RSS mobs.

improved buffs - scale up to content (and not much), most buffs we have are just bad versions of shammie/mage/cle spells (str/lion/regen) oak is a small upgrade to po9 (1 mana/tick more for 30% more spell mana in 66+ spells)

lost charm, quad, cc, and most of pull abilities. Relative to other classes lost dps, hps and utility.

gained skin of the reptile

balance????????????????????????????????????

99% is just updates to let us do still SOMETHING in uptodate content

skin of sreptile is an upgrade indeed, can tank stuff i could not without.

So you would define "upgrades" as things that let you tank better?



our heals and nukes have just scaled up - MIN UPDATE, else class oblivion, nukes and heals didnt scale as much as shammies / mages had
so our relative hps and dps went down.

Our current heals scaling is all we ~really~ need to heal the new content. Druids have been healing just fine for quite some time with just the 2 types of heals and as long as they scale up and we can beat mob dps with our heals, we can heal content.


AA abilities including

Call of the Wild, - ghetto 0% rez every 10 minutes, nice useful side utility ability to have if cleric/pally goes down. Takes 50 minutes to call a full group lol

So rez a pally or cleric in group or run back. This ability is invaluable for raids due to the ability to combat rez mana users and have them come back into the fight with a bit of mana.


SotG - yep hot .. every 10 minutes .. and much less than shammie hot. Didnt scale to current content.

If you think of this as your HoT spell then you aren't using it correctly.


CoS - umm whats this?

Convergence of Spirits - 2k heal over 3 ticks + 70 damage shield + 66ac, single target. On same timer as SotG (15min). This would be the AA you were wanting when you said something about SotG.


Bear AA pet - nice short dps but cant tank for more than 0.0001 s.. compare to mage/necro pet at 70.

You missed the point of this AA if you thought it was gonna be a pet for anything but dps. This was given to us as a similar ability to mage/shaman/wiz/etc.. swarm pets.


knockback root - knockback broken, range far too short, cast time and reload far too long for group ghetto cc , duration far too short to solo( better savage root in most situations.. but savage breaks). Most tanks ask me NEVER to root because it messes up aggro. Shammie or cleric root holds instead ... saw in the hive WE DONT HAVE ROOT ANY MORE.

It also has a resist check -50 chromatic, thus making it land almost all the time. Ornate pants/savage roots will work as well. If your tank can't handle the dps of 4 mobs, you can root one off and break the root when the tank wants to kill it, thus aggro isn't a problem. We have plenty of root options now: Damage root, chromatic resist root, non-damage longer max duration root, and AE root.

snare with a resist check mod - due update to content (group only), ensnare was much better with 15 min duration, cant solo with this unless u cast this and overwrite with ensnare (spell slots???). WE HAVE ONLY CRIPPLED SNARE FOR SOLOING.

I don't have Serpent Vines memmed while soloing tbh. My solo game is still just fine. I use Serpent Vines for groups because it lands a lot easier than Ensnare and most of the time mobs in groups don't last longer than 45 seconds-1min, far less than the duration of Serpent Vines. Just because you feel that you ~must~ use the newest update of a spell doesn't mean that it's the only one that anybody can use.


a DA type spell - decent stuff, lasts 15 seconds against RSS mobs.

Lasts 18 seconds tops, against RSS mobs it lasts exactly long enough for a tank to get aggro back. 2-3 rounds of an RSS mob beating on you will remove the effect, but if your tank isn't good enough to taunt/stun/aggro that mob in that amount of time, odds are they aren't good enough to be tanking RSS.


improved buffs - scale up to content (and not much), most buffs we have are just bad versions of shammie/mage/cle spells (str/lion/regen) oak is a small upgrade to po9 (1 mana/tick more for 30% more spell mana in 66+ spells)

If mana regen is all you use this spell for you're wasting it. Steeloak added 11ac (34% increase), 154hp (25% increase), and 1 mana regen (13% increase) for an increase of 181 mana (25% increase).
Protection of the Nine (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=3234&source=Live)
Steeloak Skin (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5352&source=Live)

I'd say that scaled pretty nicely.


lost charm, quad, cc, and most of pull abilities. Relative to other classes lost dps, hps and utility.

We gained a pulling ability (Nature's Serenity (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5347&source=Live)), we gained a CC ability(Spore Spiral (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=8010&source=Live)), our charm was scaled up (Nature's Beckon (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5359&source=Live)). Get your facts straight before posting please.


How did we lose anything? My question still stands.

Call of the Wild, - ghetto 0% rez every 10 minutes, nice useful side utility ability to have if cleric/pally goes down. Takes 50 minutes to call a full group lol

Out of a 6 person group, chances are it will contain at least 1 of the 5 classes which can bring dead people back to life.

SotG - yep hot .. every 10 minutes .. and much less than shammie hot. Didnt scale to current content.

Reuse is 15 minutes.

Your neglecting that the Shaman HoTs are single target. However, for sake of arguement:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5935&source=Live Shaman's Group HoT - 333 / tick

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5883&source=Live Druid's Spirit of the Grove AA, Group HoT 333 / tick

Both AA's are 15 minute recycle.

So we're even, unless you are refering to:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=6241&source=Live Which is their 1.5 click, usable once every 6 minutes and heals 400 / tick for 1 minute.

CoS - umm whats this?

Convergance of Spirits, a High Powered Single Target HoT we get as a AA skill. Reuse is 15 minutes, insta Cast, final level is a 2k Direct heal and a 1k / tick hot for 18 seconds.

Which, I may add heals 180 more per tick then Spiritual Serenity, which is the shaman's best heal over time spell.

Bear AA pet - nice short dps but cant tank for more than 0.0001 s.. compare to mage/necro pet at 70.

It lasts just as long in a tanking situation as a Mage, Necro or Bard swarm pet. Becuase that is what it is, a dps weapon, not a tanking shield.


knockback root - knockback broken, range far too short, cast time and reload far too long for group ghetto cc , duration far too short to solo( better savage root in most situations.. but savage breaks). Most tanks ask me NEVER to root because it messes up aggro. Shammie or cleric root holds instead ... saw in the hive WE DONT HAVE ROOT ANY MORE.


Your incorrect. Root changes aggro to proximity. The Knockback does work, least it did for me yesterday when I used the spell for 20 minutes straight.

Infact, the only reason I was able to solo the mob as well as I did, was due to this root. Savage Broke far to often due to high MR on the mob I was fighting.

If you want a long lasting root, Savage is the way to go, and Clerics and Shamans have no real advantage of us there.


snare with a resist check mod - due update to content (group only), ensnare was much better with 15 min duration, cant solo with this unless u cast this and overwrite with ensnare (spell slots???). WE HAVE ONLY CRIPPLED SNARE FOR SOLOING.


We actually have 3 resist check Snares. Hungry Vines and the 2 DoN Snares. You can solo just fine with it, you just snare more often. Wizards have been soloing like this for YEARS. Ensnare overwrites it becuase it is roughly the same percentage snare but the duration is nearly 4 times that of Seperents Vines.

Ensnare still works perfectly well on mobs as long as they are nto excessvily MR. Resist Check snares however, allow for soloing mobs which DO HAVE high MR.


improved buffs - scale up to content (and not much), most buffs we have are just bad versions of shammie/mage/cle spells (str/lion/regen) oak is a small upgrade to po9 (1 mana/tick more for 30% more spell mana in 66+ spells)


Lions is the same Damage Modifer as Might. Shamans get a group version, thats the only differance.

Regen is the same between Druids and Shamans.

Our strength line ended at Nature's Might back in PoP.

Cleric Self Buff armor only increased 1 mana regen as well.


lost charm, quad, cc, and most of pull abilities. Relative to other classes lost dps, hps and utility.


Nature's Beckon, charm upto level 65 - Omens.
They didn't upgrade our Quad line
CC: Low Resist Snares, Roots - CC doesn't just mean a mob is rooted, it means its focused and not hitting people you don't want it to hit.
Pull Abilities: Low Resist Snares, Upgrade to Harmony upto level 70 - Outdoor only -Omens / DoN

Other:
DPS: Dawnstrike, similar effect to both Mage and Wizard Lines. Epic 1.5/2.0 - Direct DPS increase on nuke damage by 30/50 percent for 30 seconds / 20 nukes - Omens/DoD
HPs: I don't see where your getting this at all
Ultility: Yes, I can totally see how Shared Camo was a major blow to our utility.

I think, and strongly suggest, you really look at the entire picture before making comments without anything to back them up.

You may not feel we are balanced, but your post does nothing to support that claim.

-Fenier

Wow this really made you write a lot people .. i try to reply

>> So you would define "upgrades" as things that let you tank better?
i define an upgrade as the ability to do something new or vastly better in interesting/newcontent places. So yes tanking wos (or rss as some said) using skin of the reptile is an upgrade.

>> Our current heals scaling is all we ~really~ need to heal the new content. Druids have been healing just fine for quite some time with just the 2 types of heals and as long as they scale up and we can beat mob dps with our heals, we can heal content.
well you need a lot (all healing related i would say) of AA's and focuses to beat RSS mob dps. Now with reptile it should become a lot easier. Reptile= upgrade.

>>SOTG If you think of this as your HoT spell then you aren't using it correctly
I only have sotw atm .. well how you use sotg?

>> AA pet You missed the point of this AA if you thought it was gonna be a pet for anything but dps. This was given to us as a similar ability to mage/shaman/wiz/etc.. swarm pets.
Yes had a big delusion when i saw this was just a swarm pet. I was hoping we would get a limited time offtanking pet like mages (which have swarm as well lol). Better than nothing , but just a small improvement.

>>Spore spiral: If your tank can't handle the dps of 4 mobs, you can root one off and break the root when the tank wants to kill it, thus aggro isn't a problem
except for the fact that the knockback doesnt kick out of melee range, so the mob keeps hitting the surrounded tank. If you cast on inc, the range is too short/cast time too long. Usually tanks wont move becuse they are busy building aggro. If he does move, you cannot root another cause the spell is reloading. Useless. Oly way to root one before it hits the tank would be to go out and wait puller well ahead of group .. but in that case mob mob in the train will notice you and kill you, to then kill rest of group... unless puller really got firm aggro on whole train, which i doubt.

>>Your incorrect. Root changes aggro to proximity.
umm yes but when tank doesnt keep min range and pet classes lose all their pets or the beastlord dies .. because they not used to keep max melee range they get angry at you and say NEVER ROOT AGAIN.

>>Savage Broke far to often due to high MR on the mob I was fighting. If you want a long lasting root, Savage is the way to go

umm please dont contradict yourself =) In uptodate zones savage breaks every 10 seconds.

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5417&source=Live
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5350&source=Live

Spore spirals casting range and recast time make it worthless. The knockback range isn't as large as melee ranger ethier.

When is root most needed? When your group doesn't have a pulling class or enc. Does a 15 second recast time cut it when 3+ adds need to be rooted? no.

>> We gained a pulling ability (Nature's Serenity (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5347&source=Live)), we gained a CC ability(Spore Spiral (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=8010&source=Live)), our charm was scaled up (Nature's Beckon (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5359&source=Live)). Get your facts straight before posting please.

No Nature serenity is just an update, not an upgrade, it just allowes us to do what we used to do in newer content.
Nature Beckon you are correct we have an updated spell but no animals in most new zones (have to check DON/DOD for charmable as i dont have 70 spell yet though).. until then i consider we are at a loss of an ability (charm) .. so downgrade. Pumas are charmable in DONs? seemed not.. is the bat in dreadspire charmable / dire charmable? has anyone a list of charmable stuff in new zones?
Spore spiral .. se above .. get your facts straight too plz

>> Snare I don't have Serpent Vines memmed while soloing tbh. My solo game is still just fine. I use Serpent Vines for groups because it lands a lot easier than Ensnare and most of the time mobs in groups don't last longer than 45 seconds-1min, far less than the duration of Serpent Vines. Just because you feel that you ~must~ use the newest update of a spell doesn't mean that it's the only one that anybody can use.

So what? i was talking about soloing .. mire thorns good enough for groups. Vines is spell for group hunting and its an upgrade, although worse than the AOE slow/rune shammies get. 3 minutes is short for soloing, 45 seconds ridicoulous.
my point is that in uptodate content snare is DOWNGRADED from duration point of view. Soloing with ensnare is plain suicide. You can pull with new snares than ensnare though .. but that consumes 2 spell slots and u need 15 when soloing already.

And the % slower movement is A LOT worse than necros snare. Try snaring a ukun in rcod with mire thorns and kite avoiding being hit. IF it lands, runs as old time mobs unsnared. Only spell that snares slightly better is our lev 60 AOE snare.

>> BUFFS: If mana regen is all you use this spell for you're wasting it. Steeloak added 11ac (34% increase), 154hp (25% increase), and 1 mana regen (13% increase) for an increase of 181 mana (25% increase).
uh didnt know 11ac 154hp really make a difference in high end content do they? they make the toon live for a lot longer .. yea right. Why do tanks always want virtue then? I'd say only casters have interest in oak (sometimes).

>>About Lion, please see post above from Kamion comparing lion and champion

>>Convergance of Spirits, a High Powered Single Target HoT we get as a AA skill. Reuse is 15 minutes, insta Cast, final level is a 2k Direct heal and a 1k / tick hot for 18 seconds. Which, I may add heals 180 more per tick then Spiritual Serenity, which is the shaman's best heal over time spell.

Nice .. this is an upgrade. Have to get it. So until now Skin of reptile and CoS and group inviso AA are upgrades (i.e. new/much improved abilities, allowing us to take on/do stuff we could not in new content), the rest is just updates or downgrades.

>>>DPS .. how much dps do rogues/berserkers/wizzies/mages/necros do? i think more than us with much lower level and aa's.
wars/sk/pallies/beastlords? how much do encs and clerics?
I feel we are pretty low on dps scale. I can do about 250. Dont think i can go over 400 burst dps
(man i saw a 60% fire and cold focus gloves linked from uber guild people .. dream)

I read wizzies can crit 20K now .. i crit for 5K with downstrike which seems to parse for less dps than solstice.

So i update ...

gained skin of the reptile (which rescued our hps capabilities), CoS and group inviso AA

lost charm, quad, cc. Relative to other classes lost dps and utility.

balance????????????????????????????????????

i define an upgrade as the ability to do something new or vastly better in interesting/newcontent places. So yes tanking wos (or rss as some said) using skin of the reptile is an upgrade.

Upgrade defined. (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=upgrade)
All of the new spells that improved on old ones are upgrades. Technically, Skin of the Reptile is NOT. It's a new ability.

well you need a lot (all healing related i would say) of AA's and focuses to beat RSS mob dps. Now with reptile it should become a lot easier. Reptile= upgrade.

Heaven forbid you need to work to get better AAs and gear so you can exp in better places.

I only have sotw atm .. well how you use sotg?
Healing AE dot damage or topping off hp. Using it to HoT a single person is a waste of the healing potential it has.

Yes had a big delusion when i saw this was just a swarm pet. I was hoping we would get a limited time offtanking pet like mages (which have swarm as well lol). Better than nothing , but just a small improvement.

A pet that can hit for 300s > pet that can deal a total of 12 damage in a fight. That's a pretty big upgrade imo. And wtf... Booboo 1.0 can tank in a limited manner like a speedbump!

except for the fact that the knockback doesnt kick out of melee range, so the mob keeps hitting the surrounded tank. If you cast on inc, the range is too short/cast time too long. Usually tanks wont move becuse they are busy building aggro. If he does move, you cannot root another cause the spell is reloading. Useless. Oly way to root one before it hits the tank would be to go out and wait puller well ahead of group .. but in that case mob mob in the train will notice you and kill you, to then kill rest of group... unless puller really got firm aggro on whole train, which i doubt.
The knockback is bugged yes, and until it gets fixed the spell is limited in use. Just because something has a recast doesn't make it useless. I can kite a mob for 15 seconds waiting on the refresh assuming nobody else is trying to get aggro off me (damn Spell casting subtlety 3 =/).

umm yes but when tank doesnt keep min range and pet classes lose all their pets or the beastlord dies .. because they not used to keep max melee range they get angry at you and say NEVER ROOT AGAIN.
So break the root? I yell at mages and beastlords to stay off my roots because the procs they have will break root. Tanks tend to have procs on weapons also that break root. Sadly, this fact has been overlooked. Root has a chance to break when you nuke the mob just so you know, and procs count as nukes.

umm please dont contradict yourself =) In uptodate zones savage breaks every 10 seconds.
Soloing in the hive my root lasts a minute at least using ornate pants (clicky Savage Roots). He didn't contradict himself. Something you seem to be completely overlooking is that spells are situational. If you need a resist check on your root, use Spore Spiral, if you need duration, use Savage roots.

uh didnt know 11ac 154hp really make a difference in high end content do they? they make the toon live for a lot longer .. yea right. Why do tanks always want virtue then? I'd say only casters have interest in oak (sometimes).
Tanks want Virtue/Conviction because of the AC and the need to use fewer buffs for hp. The number of times I've seen tanks go purple more than justifies 154hp.

So what? i was talking about soloing .. mire thorns good enough for groups. Vines is spell for group hunting and its an upgrade, although worse than the AOE slow/rune shammies get. 3 minutes is short for soloing, 45 seconds ridicoulous.
my point is that in uptodate content snare is DOWNGRADED from duration point of view. Soloing with ensnare is plain suicide. You can pull with new snares than ensnare though .. but that consumes 2 spell slots and u need 15 when soloing already.

As mentioned above, spell use is situational. If you need something, mem the spell for it. Not every spell is going to be a total and complete upgrade. Hell, look at savage roots for example... it has 0 damage, the root previous to it has 400 damage.

Nice .. this is an upgrade. Have to get it. So until now Skin of reptile and CoS and group inviso AA are upgrades (i.e. new/much improved abilities, allowing us to take on/do stuff we could not in new content), the rest is just updates or downgrades.

Situational doesn't equal downgrade. Learn that and then look at how ridiculous what you're saying is.

And my question still stands... how have we lost anything?

Nature Beckon you are correct we have an updated spell but no animals in most new zones (have to check DON/DOD for charmable as i dont have 70 spell yet though).. until then i consider we are at a loss of an ability (charm) .. so downgrade.

Its an upgrade in the strictest sense of the word, b/c you can now charm mobs in GoD that were too high for our charm before. It may not be current content, but our charm is really never meant for current content. Alot of druids got spoiled by the glory days of Frog Charming in Plane of Storms, but you can pretty much bet won't happen again. They have pretty much excluded charmable mobs for all classes in new zones. I am sure enc's can charm a mob here or there, but SoE IMO wants to limit charm to a utility too add to a group, not a way to solo.

Due to the nature of our class (jake of all trades), when they do "rebalance" us again, it will make us overly powerful in some respects and all other classes associated with us will be slowly rebalanced with better abilities again until the same situation arises again.

IE. Our rebalance in PoP bumped us from way out of balance in the negative to out of balance in the positive. Now other classes have been bumped up and that is pushing us back out of balance. A specific example of this is the Shaman class who raised the complant druids are better healers and we have AE HoT, so they have been bumped to compete with us on ae heals and their direct heal. That made them more effective healers and drastically more effective healers if you factor in slow, so SoE gives us Skin like Reptile to give us another method of healing to "balance" the equation. Me personaly, I'd rather have the single target HoT.

RINSE AND REPEAT (until the end of EQ)

Dear Mordien .. RINSE RINSE =)

Skin of reptile is really good also because it scales up with mob attack speed /numer of mobs hitting the tank and should partially scale up with content. Love it. Hope it stays around unnerfed for a long time.

Dear Dayuna

>> SOTG Healing AE dot damage or topping off hp. Using it to HoT a single person is a waste of the healing potential it has
I am not .. I am using it as an emergency tool when group has 2-3 mobs at hand and at least 2 are taking hits. I am not the noob you think i am =) And please dont say i am making ridicolous remarks and respect my (and others) opinions as much as i respected yours without offending you. If you think i am wrong, just say so. Personally i think its your idea of kiting mobs off the group in RSS thats ridicoulous .. lol do it in riftseeker camp and see the group hail the train that you bring back =)

>> Soloing in the hive my root lasts a minute at least using ornate pants (clicky Savage Roots). He didn't contradict himself. Something you seem to be completely overlooking is that spells are situational. If you need a resist check on your root, use Spore Spiral, if you need duration, use Savage roots.
we have roots holding 1 minute .. great .. back to level 1 =). In RSS MPG which i know better savage was usually holding like 10 seconds usually, making it useless . Same happened to me in DON creator (was trying to rootrot, noone was hitting the mob). So if you are right, mybe newer content is better for us druids.

>>Hell, look at savage roots for example... it has 0 damage, the root previous to it has 400 damage.
we all know that a nondamage root is an upgrade bacause it doesnt break mez and it is resisted less.

>>Root has a chance to break when you nuke the mob just so you know
AHAHHH you really consider me a total noob =)

Skin of reptile is really good also because it scales up with mob attack speed /numer of mobs hitting the tank and should partially scale up with content. Love it. Hope it stays around unnerfed for a long time.

Mob attack speed just means more hits, more likely it is to go off. How hard the mobs hit is really what scales up and Skin of the Reptile will lose effectiveness with new mobs that hit harder. It's still a great spell though.


I am not .. I am using it as an emergency tool when group has 2-3 mobs at hand and at least 2 are taking hits. I am not the noob you think i am =) And please dont say i am making ridicolous remarks and respect my (and others) opinions as much as i respected yours without offending you. If you think i am wrong, just say so. Personally i think its your idea of kiting mobs off the group in RSS thats ridicoulous .. lol do it in riftseeker camp and see the group hail the train that you bring back =)

Did I ever say RS in my post? No. But besides that point, I'd still say it can be done in some places there. You consistantly argue that a spell is a downgrade or not an upgrade when it doesn't increase in power and duration and anything else that is there and expect me to not call that ridiculous? I do respect ideas if they're well thought-out, well presented, and based on facts. None of which seemed to match your post.

we have roots holding 1 minute .. great .. back to level 1 =). In RSS MPG which i know better savage was usually holding like 10 seconds usually, making it useless . Same happened to me in DON creator (was trying to rootrot, noone was hitting the mob). So if you are right, mybe newer content is better for us druids.
With ornate pants you can refresh root every 3 seconds. Hardly a problem imo.

we all know that a nondamage root is an upgrade bacause it doesnt break mez and it is resisted less.
This a) contradicts your previous statements that things were not upgrades unless they were new and b) contradicts the implication that you make in saying that something is not an upgrade unless it increases in duration and strength.

AHAHHH you really consider me a total noob =)
No, I consider the presentation you make of your ideas noobish and based on that (being all I know about you) I really don't know how much experience you have playing the game or how much you know.

so SoE gives us Skin like Reptile to give us another method of healing to "balance" the equation. Me personaly, I'd rather have the single target HoT.
Skin of the Reptile is actually potentially more effective than single target HoTs being that you can get multiple procs of it inside of a tick, though that's debatable and not always the case.

Convergance of Spirits, a High Powered Single Target HoT we get as a AA skill. Reuse is 15 minutes, insta Cast, final level is a 2k Direct heal and a 1k / tick hot for 18 seconds.

Which, I may add heals 180 more per tick then Spiritual Serenity, which is the shaman's best heal over time spell.

In practice, CoS is used more like an arb (ie oh **** heal) rather than a HoT. Don't get me wrong the thing kicks ass, but a main quality of a true HoT is low aggro.

holy novels...

you folks hurt my brain

(have to check DON/DOD for charmable as i dont have 70 spell yet though).. until then i consider we are at a loss of an ability (charm) .. so downgrade. Pumas are charmable in DONs? seemed not.. is the bat in dreadspire charmable / dire charmable? has anyone a list of charmable stuff in new zones?

You can't argue the class has lost a power because you don't have a spell.

Secondly, there are a few npcs in both DoD and DoN which can be charmed with Nature's Beckon.

The Dreadspire bats are over level 70, so are uncharmable.

So what? i was talking about soloing .. mire thorns good enough for groups. Vines is spell for group hunting and its an upgrade, although worse than the AOE slow/rune shammies get. 3 minutes is short for soloing, 45 seconds ridicoulous.

The Shaman verson slows and has a higher mitigation effect, ours deals damage to the mob as it hits and doesn't shave off as much incoming damage. We snare, they slow - its a trade off.

Hungry Vines has alot of effects to it, and if your JUST using it as a snare your not using it fully.

Serpent's Vines is fine, 3 minutes is ok for a -50 check snare, it opened up alot of content for us imo.


my point is that in uptodate content snare is DOWNGRADED from duration point of view. Soloing with ensnare is plain suicide. You can pull with new snares than ensnare though .. but that consumes 2 spell slots and u need 15 when soloing already.


Actually its the same from our prior snare, Bonds of Tunare.

As for needing 15 slots..

Root / DoT setup

SI
Ro
Chaos Frost
Wasp Swarm
Serpent's Vines
Spore Spiral / Savage Root
Vengance
Egress
Oaken Guard

Looks fine to me? 9 Spell Slots.

And the % slower movement is A LOT worse than necros snare. Try snaring a ukun in rcod with mire thorns and kite avoiding being hit. IF it lands, runs as old time mobs unsnared. Only spell that snares slightly better is our lev 60 AOE snare.

It is well known that Omens stuff runs alot faster then old content, the snare reduces that speed, so of course its still going to run faster then a Sarnak in Burning Woods.

Secondly, we have no AE Snare at 60, we have an AE Root at 60. I am assuming you mean Bonds of Tunare, which is late 50s.

You can't argue the class has lost a power because you don't have a spell.
I missed that part of dorda's post but it's quite true.

Hungry Vines has alot of effects to it, and if your JUST using it as a snare your not using it fully.
Hungry Vines (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5349&source=Live)
and it has a recourse that's a pbae around the mob cast on that gives group members Hungry Vines Recourse (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=6154). Links provided to emphasis Fenier's point.

As for needing 15 slots..

Root / DoT setup

SI
Ro
Chaos Frost
Wasp Swarm
Serpent's Vines
Spore Spiral / Savage Root
Vengance
Egress
Oaken Guard

Looks fine to me? 9 Spell Slots.
For the 3 AA points it takes for Mnemonic Retention.
If you lack this AA then Ro is optional, or Egress can be dropped if you have Exodus available.

For the 3 AA points it takes for Mnemonic Retention.
If you lack this AA then Ro is optional, or Egress can be dropped if you have Exodus available.

This was my mistake, by Ro I ment the Ro DoT line, which is currently Immo of the Sun, my fault for not being clear.

I have 30% bennifical spell haste, so unless I am on the verge of death I would rather try to channel Egress.

But what Dayuna said is totally correct.

Ok i dont have the time to read and reply to all of your replies .. and our discussion is losing focus.. so i thought it over and these are my points..also based on the replies i read here. please let us restart from this.

1) with skin of serpent gained ghetto tank abilities which counteracts our worse doom, SUMMON. Charm was main tool to counteract it till now, now we have 2. Very happy.
2) charm is still feasable in some high level zones. BTW Fenier i saw a bat green to 70 near zonein in dreadspire .. that charmable? Wonder is we can use that to solo /duo dreadspire.
3) seems we finally agree that spore spiral is broken. Knockback needs to be increased to be out of melee range as main issue. Long cast time /recast are other issues. Once fixed and with the -50 resist it has ot could be a decent ghetto CC tool.
4) hps increased thanks to some new tool we got in DOD. We better healers now.
5) dps seem unchanged to me.

Ok i dont have the time to read and reply to all of your replies .. and our discussion is losing focus.. so i thought it over and these are my points..also based on the replies i read here. please let us restart from this.

We've made several valid points reguarding what you think, but since you can't reply to them, we're going to start over and repeat the last two pages. Ok, lets begin.

1) with skin of serpent gained ghetto tank abilities which counteracts our worse doom, SUMMON. Charm was main tool to counteract it till now, now we have 2. Very happy.

Summoning is far from the worst thing a mob can do. If you have decent defensive aas, you can solo tank things that summon, this was only increased with the addition of Skin of the Reptile.

Personally, most mobs I wanted to solo that summoned had nothing for me to charm in the first place.

2) charm is still feasable in some high level zones. BTW Fenier i saw a bat green to 70 near zonein in dreadspire .. that charmable? Wonder is we can use that to solo /duo dreadspire.

If you honestly think a green bat is going to stand upto a yellow/red to 70
mob that hits well over 1k, then we have other issues that need discussing. The point of the bat being charmable thus becomes a very minor point to its being useful while charmed in a solo / duo situation.

3) seems we finally agree that spore spiral is broken. Knockback needs to be increased to be out of melee range as main issue. Long cast time /recast are other issues. Once fixed and with the -50 resist it has ot could be a decent ghetto CC tool.

I really don't see, or have, any problems with Spore Spiral as it is now, so no, I don't agree with you.

4) hps increased thanks to some new tool we got in DOD. We better healers now.

Which tool with that be?

Spells:
Dawnstike - Nuke,
Reptile, Defensive Proc
Spore Spiral, Root

AA:
Convergance of Spirits - HoT/Direct Heal
Nature's Guardian - Swarm Bear

Looking.. looking.. nope, nothing there that increases hitpoints. So you have me on this one becuase I have No clue what your refering to. Maybe you meant Healing Hitpoints? That would make sense, Adbundant Healing, Convergance of Spirits and Skin of the Reptile would work in that sense.

5) dps seem unchanged to me.

This is impossiable.

Dawnstrike while it "procs" can randomly add a value of extra damage upto 100 percent to your next nuke that lands. You can effectivly double the nukes damage without even crtiting.

Improved Crit DoTs - made it so our dots can critical even more often then they did previously

Nature's Guardian, gave us a 60 second bear which can hit upwards of 350 which is both instacast and can deal upwards of 2k+ damage in those 60 seconds

If, by looking at all those factors you can not account for even the slightly dps increase over what we had before Depths, then I strongly recommend you seek our a new parser becuase yours is clearly broken.

Looking over the thread, a few things I missed:


we have roots holding 1 minute .. great .. back to level 1 =). In RSS MPG which i know better savage was usually holding like 10 seconds usually, making it useless . Same happened to me in DON creator (was trying to rootrot, noone was hitting the mob). So if you are right, mybe newer content is better for us druids.



Grasping Roots, Level 2 Root (which I assuming you ment becuase we don't get a root at level 1), Lasts 8 ticks, 8 x 6 = 42 seconds.

Ensnaring Roots however, at level 21, lasts between 1.3 and 1.6 minutes.

So I am going to assume, thats the spell you ment to compare it to.

Lets start with this, Ensnaring Roots deals 60 Damage, roots the mob, cast time of 2.5 on a direct solid magic resist check.

So, it will break mez, it will be resisted, it will not land at all against anything remotely magic resistant

Savage Roots deals no damage, it roots the mob, the cast time is 2.5, on a magic check with a negative 30 modifer. It can last upto 4.5 minutes.

The draw back here, is that if a mob is massivily resistant it still will not land, or will land and break quickly.

This is still my perfered root, but as I fight more magicly resistant creatures, I find myself using Spore Spiral More.

Spore Spiral deals no damage, it roots the mob, cast time is 3 making it so spell haste works on the spell. (Spell haste does not work on Savage Roots becuase the cast time is less then 3 seconds). Futhermore, it checks verus the lowest resist type of the mob, then subtracts 50. So, the mob has to be VERY resistant to ALL resist types in order to resist Spore Spiral.

This is balanced slightly imo by reducing the duration to 1 minute, which is roughly 1/4th that of Savage Roots JUST LIKE, our Low Resist snares are roughly 1/4th of Ensnare.

I can not account for the long recast. I am not sure why that is like that. The rest of the Spell Makes sense. It works. Its very effective on MR style mobs but you need to make sure to recast the spell, you can NOT just forget about it for 4.5 minutes like you can if you Savage Root something.

IE - It is a good spell, IF you can pay attention.

So, Like Dayuna said, the spell is totally situtional, and thats fine, it just requires the player being smart enough to know when the situation is correct for the spell.


>>About Lion, please see post above from Kamion comparing lion and champion


Champion:
<TABLE class=spellview cellPadding=3 width="95%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=right>3: </TD><TD>Increase ATK by 140</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=right>4: </TD><TD>Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 10%</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=right>5: </TD><TD>Increase AGI by 140</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=right>6: </TD><TD>Increase STR by 140</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=right>7: </TD><TD>Increase DEX by 140

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Cast time: 3 seconds, Recast time 60 seconds, AE Range 60, Group Spell, Mana used 1500, Duration 6.5 Minutes

This is a upgrade to Avatar, a Spell Line Shamans have had Since Kunark.

Avatar - Primal Avatar, Ferine Avatar, Champion

Lion's Strengh:

Cast time: 2.5 seconds, Recast time, 2.25 seconds, Single Target, Mana Used 165, Duration 1 hour, 12 minutes.

They are not even the same KIND of spell. Lion's is the Druid Equivlent to Might. What is your point here? Are you claiming Druid's are unbalanced becuase we lack the power to cast a Avatar Style spell on our group? A Spell Line we have NEVER had to begin with?

If you want to post a specfic claim as to why we have lost something, or are unbalanced with actualized fact to support your statement then we can have a civilized discussion about it. You don't however, you claim something with very minor points which *may* if looked at in a certain specfic point of view, cuase one to be led to the statement your making. But you totally ignore everything else which works against your statement.

-Fenier

Lions is the same Damage Modifer as Might. Shamans get a group version, thats the only differance.

On the subject of damage modifing buffs, that's not the only difference.

I wasn't including Champion in my orginal statement becuase I honestly don't consider Avatar Style spells to be in line with ANY Strength spell we have ever had.

I was refering exactly to this for the group version of Might:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5409&source=Live

The Shaman Avatar line progresses as follows:

Avatar, Primal Avatar, Anicent: Feral Avatar, Ferine Avatar, Champion

So, if you want to compare Champion to Lion's Strength, you are not making a fair comparison becuase the Spell was intended to give us a verison of Might, not of Avatar, or a similar spell.

Ok i dont have the time to read and reply to all of your replies .. and our discussion is losing focus.. so i thought it over and these are my points..also based on the replies i read here. please let us restart from this.
If you are unwilling to read the points we make you aren't seeing our side of this debate and that's somewhat key to the discussion. Spouting the same things over and over and not listening to the other side and refuting their points is how you lose credibility in a debate.

1) with skin of serpent gained ghetto tank abilities which counteracts our worse doom, SUMMON. Charm was main tool to counteract it till now, now we have 2. Very happy.
Charming a mob to use it to kill a summoning mob is a good strategy, but honestly, without the gear/AAs you won't be able to deal with summoning mob damage even with skin of the reptile on. Try it in WoS sometime. /summon, /stun, /splat.

2) charm is still feasable in some high level zones. BTW Fenier i saw a bat green to 70 near zonein in dreadspire .. that charmable? Wonder is we can use that to solo /duo dreadspire.
Try it sometime and you'll see very quickly why. Those mobs are ~very~ low level. 1 Solstice strike is a KO. How something with less than 2k hp is gonna stand up to a summoning mob that can triple/quad 1k hits? Just think about that for a minute.
3) seems we finally agree that spore spiral is broken. Knockback needs to be increased to be out of melee range as main issue. Long cast time /recast are other issues. Once fixed and with the -50 resist it has ot could be a decent ghetto CC tool.
Lets go back to your original argument that it wasn't an upgrade. Yes, the knockback on it is bugged, but whether or not it's an upgrade is the issue. A chromatic -50 resist check is nothing to sneeze at. Look at Mire Thorns/Serpent Vines, all they added was a -50 chromatic check and they're viable upgrades.
4) hps increased thanks to some new tool we got in DOD. We better healers now.
See Fenier's post. In addition, how does tank hp, or even our spells make us better healers. My definition of "better healer" is probably a bit different from yours. I qualify "better healer" as being more skilled in healing. Honestly, I dont' understand what you're saying with this point, if you could clarify I would like to see what you mean by this.

5) dps seem unchanged to me.
See Fenier's post for upgrades in the LATEST expansion alone. Last time I checked you wanted to generalize the last 3-4 expansions and I an promise there's a ton more that could be added to Fenier's list.

The Shaman Avatar line progresses as follows:

Avatar, Primal Avatar, Anicent: Feral Avatar, Ferine Avatar, Champion

So, if you want to compare Champion to Lion's Strength, you are not making a fair comparison becuase the Spell was intended to give us a verison of Might, not of Avatar, or a similar spell.

Considering the damage mod from lion/might doesn't stack with that of champion, it's a fair comparison imo...

>>If you are unwilling to read the points we make you aren't seeing our side of this debate and that's somewhat key to the discussion. Spouting the same things over and over and not listening to the other side and refuting their points is how you lose credibility in a debate.
I said i didnt have time, not that i was unwilling ... c'mon ...

>>Charming a mob to use it to kill a summoning mob is a good strategy, but honestly, without the gear/AAs you won't be able to deal with summoning mob damage even with skin of the reptile on. Try it in WoS sometime. /summon, /stun, /splat.
>>Try it sometime and you'll see very quickly why. Those mobs are ~very~ low level. 1 Solstice strike is a KO. How something with less than 2k hp is gonna stand up to a summoning mob that can triple/quad 1k hits? Just think about that for a minute.

not .. actually i tanked chimeras and ferans for some groups already .. I have 7.5khp and mana buffed.. /summon /splat without reptile, but ok with it .. could tank DON mobs as well if that (/&£$ things wouldnt keep healing themselfes ... or you mean charming a chimera to kill like murkies (which dont summon)? in that case the following argument really confuses me. What has 2khp?


>>Lets go back to your original argument that it wasn't an upgrade. Yes, the knockback on it is bugged, but whether or not it's an upgrade is the issue. A chromatic -50 resist check is nothing to sneeze at. Look at Mire Thorns/Serpent Vines, all they added was a -50 chromatic check and they're viable upgrades.

yes on the resist side its an NECESSARY upgrade to keep root ability to root in highend zones, but a downgrade for every other aspect compared to what we were used to at lower levels. If it is fixed,as i hope, it will be a great spell to use.
Same thing for Mire thorns /Sepent Vines, in highend zones u MUST use them to have snare ability, but their duration is a downgrade compared to ensnare. So you CAN now do in current content zones what you used to do at lev 51 .. but you MUST use spells which have shorter duration.

>>See Fenier's post. In addition, how does tank hp, or even our spells make us better healers. My definition of "better healer" is probably a bit different from yours. I qualify "better healer" as being more skilled in healing. Honestly, I dont' understand what you're saying with this point, if you could clarify I would like to see what you mean by this.

better healer = ability to produce more hps and fast enough that tank/groupies dont die against mobs with higher dps (or more mobs hitting at same time). Skin of serpent effectively slows tank hp loss so that the healer (druid or other) has more time to land direct heals. I call it autopatchheal. Clear enough? Of course an unskilled healer can make the tank die with the best toolbox, but that is not the point of this discussion.

>>Fenier You can't argue the class has lost a power because you don't have a spell.
yes you are right. I still miss the last 2 glowing runes .. taking MONTHS to get them and losing all rolls :( looking forward.

>>Secondly, there are a few npcs in both DoD and DoN which can be charmed with Nature's Beckon.
good news .. which ones? can someone post a charmable NPC list plz? now that would be useful..

>>The Dreadspire bats are over level 70, so are uncharmable.
NO is not .. what i saw at zonein is a green bat to 70. Didnt try charming it yet though.

>>The Shaman verson slows and has a higher mitigation effect, ours deals damage to the mob as it hits and doesn't shave off as much incoming damage. We snare, they slow - its a trade off.
>>Hungry Vines has alot of effects to it, and if your JUST using it as a snare your not using it fully.
Well if our AOE snare aggros all train against us and we have space to kite, and we can survive the beating it has interesting uses indeed and kiting CC would be an option. I wonder if the beating part is totally avoidable.

>>Serpent's Vines is fine, 3 minutes is ok for a -50 check snare, it opened up alot of content for us imo.
For soloing you mean? umm not if mobs summon. If they dont than its good news. What are good soloing zones/spots in new content? that would be nice to discuss here and to share information. I am always soloing wos murkies when lfg .. but that is getting quite repetitive..

>>Actually its the same from our prior snare, Bonds of Tunare.
>>Secondly, we have no AE Snare at 60, we have an AE Root at 60. I am assuming you mean Bonds of Tunare, which is late 50s.

NO its not. Snares snare 55%, Bonds of Tunare snares 65% Necro snare is for 75%. So once snared with single target snare, our mobs run double as fast as Necro's mobs. And yes, it is late 50's. I do errors and forget/dont know some stuff, as you do.

>>As for needing 15 slots..Root / DoT setup
SI
Ro
Chaos Frost
Wasp Swarm
Serpent's Vines
Spore Spiral / Savage Root
Vengance
Egress
Oaken Guard

Looks fine to me? 9 Spell Slots.

mine....
DOT "dont break root" set..
Savage roots
Mire thorns
Immo of ro
Veng of Sun
Wasp Swarm
Veng of Tunare
Swarming deaths
Winged death
Chlorotrope
clickies Wrath of wild+drones of doom

Would like to fit in Vengeance of Nature in some way .. probably will give up snare for clickie ensnare. Low resist snare, low resist root, debuffs, a nuke, oaken guard, skin of serpent, harmony, blind .. they all had to go to another (DOT PULL) spell set ..

>>It is well known that Omens stuff runs alot faster then old content, the snare reduces that speed, so of course its still going to run faster then a Sarnak in Burning Woods.

OH BTW .. why are we doing all this? forgot lol .. i wanted a nice discussion on what we lost/if we are keeping up with other classes/how we could define our path for the future/no we didnt lose anything becuse you can do thisandthat but i feel i am just replying to attacks. I think the following would be useful:
- a list of good DOD/DON/OOW solo spots for us
- a list of mobs/spots where we can charm in DOD/DON/OOW
So please stop attacking me and replying this and that and no no no (even wrong). If you say charm is possible, bring your experience. If you say you root rot hive, say where are good spots and whats your experience and let this be interesting to everybody. Please.

What has 2khp?

The Green bat at the zone in of Dreadspire that you asked about for soloing / duoing.



yes on the resist side its an NECESSARY upgrade to keep root ability to root in highend zones, but a downgrade for every other aspect compared to what we were used to at lower levels. If it is fixed,as i hope, it will be a great spell to use.
Same thing for Mire thorns /Sepent Vines, in highend zones u MUST use them to have snare ability, but their duration is a downgrade compared to ensnare. So you CAN now do in current content zones what you used to do at lev 51 .. but you MUST use spells which have shorter duration


Lets pause here, explain to me how something can be both a upgrade and a downgrade. Either the spell is better, or worse then the previous version in a given situtation.


better healer = ability to produce more hps and fast enough that tank/groupies dont die against mobs with higher dps (or more mobs hitting at same time). Skin of serpent effectively slows tank hp loss so that the healer (druid or other) has more time to land direct heals. I call it autopatchheal. Clear enough? Of course an unskilled healer can make the tank die with the best toolbox, but that is not the point of this discussion.


Better Healer, one who uses all available healing tools to their fullest potional reguardless of content. The Ability to heal more hp at once does not make you a better healer.

good news .. which ones? can someone post a charmable NPC list plz? now that would be useful..

Sound like a good topic for general or spells forum, feel free to start a list.


NO is not .. what i saw at zonein is a green bat to 70. Didnt try charming it yet though.


So assume its charmable, what is a green 2kish hp bat going to do against somethign that hits like a RS mob and summons? The point it is there it kinda invalid becuase even if you can charm it, its worthless.


For soloing you mean? umm not if mobs summon. If they dont than its good news. What are good soloing zones/spots in new content? that would be nice to discuss here and to share information. I am always soloing wos murkies when lfg .. but that is getting quite repetitive..


This has been covered in other posts.


NO its not. Snares snare 55%, Bonds of Tunare snares 65% Necro snare is for 75%. So once snared with single target snare, our mobs run double as fast as Necro's mobs. And yes, it is late 50's. I do errors and forget/dont know some stuff, as you do.


I was more refering to the Duration, Bonds of Tunare is 1.8 minutes, the highest level Necro Snare is 2.0 minutes. I think the speed decrease is fine considering we can increase our run speed drastically over base.

Mire Thorns / Serpent's Vines is actually a increase in duration over our previous snare (Bonds of Tunare), it does however, run at roughly 1/4th the duration of Ensnare, much like Spore Spiral is roughly 1/4th of Savage Roots.

Would like to fit in Vengeance of Nature in some way .. probably will give up snare for clickie ensnare. debuffs, a nuke, oaken guard, skin of serpent, harmony, blind .. they all had to go to another (DOT PULL) spell set ..

In Grieg's End there is a Mob known as Preatorin Myral. He drops a DA Proc Hammer amoung other things. He is soloable. He has insane regen, but can be soloed.

Spell Line Up for soloing him:

Syvlan Infusion
Immo of the Sun
Hand of Ro
Wasp Swarm
Serpent's Vines
Spore Spiral
Vengance of the Sun
Harmony of Nature
Oaken Guard

Clicky Effects I used: Orb of Clinging Death (Swarming Death), Blade of the Tempest (Tempest Wrath), Naturewalker's Scimitar (Wrath of Nature)

Total Fight time: 21 Minutes.

Thats with DoT Exention Focus, Fire DoT Damage Focus, and Crtical DoT rank 5. Obviously, rank 9 would shave some time off there, as would my getting a Burning Magic style focus.

Using that setup, I broke his room, pulled him, and killed him before the spawns I cleared respawned. I didn't need to change out my spell set.

I welcome you to try him with your current setup and we can compare notes. He doesn't summon, the room respawn is around 30 minutes.

Honestly I dont see how you can not keep Oaken Guard up at all times, considering after you load it it is STILL not ready for 15 minutes.

-Fenier

>> zonein bat. Ah ok 2khp =( thanks. Can it be at least dire charmed for (mybe) some dps?

>> Mire Thorns / Serpent's Vines is actually a increase in duration over our previous snare (Bonds of Tunare), it does however, run at roughly 1/4th the duration of Ensnare, much like Spore Spiral is roughly 1/4th of Savage Roots
which makes a duration downgrade over what we used to have .. so we keep functionality in highend zones but with spells which have worse characteristics than our old spells

>> soloing spell set. I gave up oaken guard quite simply. Only use it once if first pull in some rough place goes wrong. When i go there its charged already.
Soloing murkies in wos quite often savage root holds for full duration there, so i dot 2 murkies at a time doing about 250-350 dps for 30 minutes (double exp). Murkies have 35khp and i kill 1 every 2 minutes on average. I have dot crit 9 and use a 25% magic focus (range item that drops in RCOD, dont remember name right now). + citrine spell bauble from DON, and tradeskilled augs with pure potency and pure celerity.

The green bats in DS/DP have under 40 hp and are not charmable.

OH BTW .. why are we doing all this? forgot lol .. i wanted a nice discussion on what we lost/if we are keeping up with other classes/how we could define our path for the future/no we didnt lose anything becuse you can do thisandthat but i feel i am just replying to attacks. I think the following would be useful:
Welcome to the Unkempt Druids forum. This is a place for rants and hard debate (which in a second I'll remind you why we started). If you're looking for information, I'd like to direct your attention to this sub-set of forums (http://eq.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/forumdisplay.php?f=11).

bah i see we are sinply not understanding each other here .. or you dont even want to see my point of view. pointless discussion. I made a few questions, i never had replies. I stop.
1) You posted an contestable statement with NOTHING to back it up... let me get the quote:
Still no answer.. do our class leaders agree we have LOST abilities when doing stuff in interesting (highend) zones?

The only really new ability we have gained since POP imo is skin of the reptile .. big change .. allowes us to heal/tank stuff that was impossible before and its a great asset to a group. I want to see more of these improvements , 1 every 3-4 expansions is a bit too little imo to compensate what we lost.
We have been responding to this claim. You haven't managed to substantiate it yet with any facts. We answered every pertinent question you posed in addition to correcting you on numerous occasions (i.e. attacked every thing you said that you didn't back-up.... which was pretty much everything). If you can show your point of view and show us that it's based on something more than just whimsical opinion then we'll understand.

And to this post, my question still goes unanswered... What have druids lost?

>>If, by looking at all those factors you can not account for even the slightly dps increase over what we had before Depths, then I strongly recommend you seek our a new parser becuase yours is clearly broken

I started a tread on general noone answered.. yes mine its broken probably by lag that makes lines arrive out of order =( I get downstrike to have slightly LOWER dps due to longer cast times compared to solstice. With the proc on i usually nuke for 3.2K ... and 2.4K when its not on.

I find that the resist mod on our DoN snares more that offsets the reduced duration / increased mana cost, so I personally find it an upgrade.

When I'm grouped and on snare duty all that matters is that I can snare the mob before it can run away and agro. The duration has no effect as most mobs are dead in 1 min and normally a lot less.

When I solo (Nest, Hive) I pull with snare and the new DoN snares reduces the chance that an angry mob will catch up with me. If I get an add then I stand a much better of landing snare and allowing me to park the add somewhere safer.

The only time I use ensnare is in PoF when I quad kite and even then I keep a DoN snare up in case I get a resistent giant.

And to this post, my question still goes unanswered... What have druids lost?

useful charm in high end zones just to make an example .. bah..
lol ok this is unsubstantiated .... I retire it. New content zones are full of charmable animals, right. I can, of course, charm kite all the time in high end zones. And yes, my roots are holding for full duration in RSS .. sorry i was lying that savage root breaks there every 2 seconds.
And sorry i lied .. of COURSE our dod root kicks the mob out of aggro range. AND it has instant recast. And long range. I lied all the way sorry. You are totally right, all of what you say its totally true as all can see.

useful charm in high end zones just to make an example .. bah..
lol ok this is unsubstantiated ....
Prove it, last I checked we can solo in tipt/vxed now, two zones that used to be only doable by "uber" groups. And besides, we haven't lost those abilities, they're still quite there and in fact usable in more zones with the higher level charm. No, we haven't seen an explosion of charmable mobs and as mentioned above we probably won't ever again. Old content has use for charm, some new content does and it's far more limited, but that doesn't mean we lost the ability.

New content zones are full of charmable animals, right. I can, of course, charm kite all the time in high end zones. And yes, my roots are holding for full duration in RSS .. sorry i was lying that savage root breaks there every 2 seconds.
And sorry i lied .. of COURSE our dod root kicks the mob out of aggro range. AND it has instant recast. And long range. I lied all the way sorry. You are totally right, all of what you say its totally true as all can see.
Show me where I said any of that. At the very least I substantiate my claims with links and solid logic.

useful charm in high end zones just to make an example .. bah..
lol ok this is unsubstantiated .... I retire it. New content zones are full of charmable animals, right. I can, of course, charm kite all the time in high end zones. And yes, my roots are holding for full duration in RSS .. sorry i was lying that savage root breaks there every 2 seconds.
And sorry i lied .. of COURSE our dod root kicks the mob out of aggro range. AND it has instant recast. And long range. I lied all the way sorry. You are totally right, all of what you say its totally true as all can see.

Dorda, you are in the wrong section of the forums if you can't take hard debate, I do not post here, because quite frankly I do not have any business over here unless I intend to spend the time to research and back up everything I say.

Neither Fenier, nor Dayuna are personally attacking you, tho, they are posting in response to your posts, and backing up what they have to say. (Which you are not doing.)

Don't take it personally, its a debate.

I find that the resist mod on our DoN snares more that offsets the reduced duration / increased mana cost, so I personally find it an upgrade.

When I'm grouped and on snare duty all that matters is that I can snare the mob before it can run away and agro. The duration has no effect as most mobs are dead in 1 min and normally a lot less.

When I solo (Nest, Hive) I pull with snare and the new DoN snares reduces the chance that an angry mob will catch up with me. If I get an add then I stand a much better of landing snare and allowing me to park the add somewhere safer.

The only time I use ensnare is in PoF when I quad kite and even then I keep a DoN snare up in case I get a resistent giant.

agree .. i also ALWAYS pull with mire thorns when not doing something i can tank...then resnare because nothing is worse than having some adds and snare fading on a train of angry and fast mobs or on a single mob that kill you in 1 round and that broke root 10 times in a row. Else i start with savage root, then snare. If you have enogh solo/group dps you can finish the mob before snare wears out, in that case the different duration doesnt play a role and new snares are plain and simply much better and you can forget about ensnare.

>>Dayuna Prove it, last I checked we can solo in tipt/vxed now, two zones that used to be only doable by "uber" groups. And besides, we haven't lost those abilities, they're still quite there and in fact usable in more zones with the higher level charm. No, we haven't seen an explosion of charmable mobs and as mentioned above we probably won't ever again. Old content has use for charm, some new content does and it's far more limited, but that doesn't mean we lost the ability.

Dayuna that is useful info!!! OK i need to get that flags now. I cannot write something which is not MY experience of the game...
in MY experience all i said is true. But as i said before, i can be an utter and clueless noob as many uber zones i never saw and never will.

>>Show me where I said any of that. At the very least I substantiate my claims with links and solid logic.
no i was retiring everything I said .. u read me?

agree .. i also ALWAYS pull with mire thorns when not doing something i can tank...then resnare because nothing is worse than having some adds and snare fading on a train of angry and fast mobs or on a single mob that kill you in 1 round and that broke root 10 times in a row. Else i start with savage root, then snare. If you have enogh solo/group dps you can finish the mob before snare wears out, in that case the different duration doesnt play a role and new snares are plain and simply much better and you can forget about ensnare.
OK i need to get that flags now
Just so you know, you don't need flags to get into tipt/vxed. This is where you're crossing into the Strats and Walkthroughs forums. Please don't de-rail the topic.

Just so you know, you don't need flags to get into tipt/vxed. This is where you're crossing into the Strats and Walkthroughs forums. Please don't de-rail the topic.
uh sorry .. so useful info dont belong here ..
you and others said all i wrote is crap .. i said ok whatever .. end of it for me
if someone else wants to write something about druid balance, do so.

actually you are right, the topic is just wrong..
druids balance whitout saying WHAT you want to balance them with and HOW is just without sense.
its is NOT the point of this thread which is,reading better your first post, to "bash winers".
asking to write something useful is off topic here. Sorry.

This obviously is a rant against people that "whine" yes. The post is obviously more inclined towards the idea that druids are balanced as they are, so why do you want him to explain how to balance or what to balance them with if he likes how we are at the moment?

I personally would like an upgrade to our "Complete Heal". And since the entire point of this topic was balance with content, since with newer content tanks can reach upwards of 16k hps, how about giving us a heal that can heal that effectively (and forget about the COS heal, add up the aa cost TOTAL for that, since I am pretty sure it requires Spirit of the Grove to be maxed, which in turn requires Spirit of the Wood to be maxed, not exactly something everyone has)

I think a lot of people would just like something that makes them more attractive to groups. I wonder how many of the Anguish geared crowd actually LFG anymore? (This isn't a blast or put down, or Uber Vs Casuals attack, I just meant that most people in high end guilds tend to only group with guildies, and are not usually in any LFG situations) Regardless of how well you play your druid, the rest of the world still needs to realize that the holy trinity (cleric, slower, tank) is no longer needed, and on a lot of servers, people are still scared to group with a druid as a MH, or only healer.

I wonder how many of the Anguish geared crowd actually LFG anymore? (This isn't a blast or put down, or Uber Vs Casuals attack, I just meant that most people in high end guilds tend to only group with guildies, and are not usually in any LFG situations) Regardless of how well you play your druid, the rest of the world still needs to realize that the holy trinity (cleric, slower, tank) is no longer needed, and on a lot of servers, people are still scared to group with a druid as a MH, or only healer.

Until Recently I was apped to an Anguish Guild. I loved raiding with them but several RL issues prompted me to terminate my app there. They raid nights, and right now the bulk of my play time is like 8 am - Noon.

Even so, on the very few times I can play the druid for extended periods at night, I seldom have issues finding groups even unguilded for one simply reason - I have friends who realize I can heal well and are ok with me healing *any* content they want to do.

I realize my experiance is just that - my experiance, But if you have good friends they will typically include you in what they are doing.

-Fenier

When I have /lfg on on my druid, I rarely get any invites. While most of the time it's for raids, I do put /lfg on while afk over time just to see how many people ask. However, if I put my warrior on /lfg I ususally get 2+ invites within the first 5 minutes. My necro gets a healthly number of invites as well, but not quite as many as my warrior.

With that being said, back during PoP my druids would get multiple invites within the first 5 minutes of putting /lfg up. I guess when you can main heal a group while having a 95 dps DC pet (back when 95 dps was about what a decent warrior did) druids were a lot more appealing.

I swear to god everytime a whines comes up here in TDG or in EQlive druid boards (which i frequently browse but i don't bother replying to) it makes me realize how much i LOVE my class, because quite frankly i must be playing a god-like druid to not understand at all why people whine so much about the class i'm playing.

You stated somewhere that most your playtime is spent raiding, Nim. Raiding aspects are more balanced than group aspects so I can see why your oblivious to most of our weaknesses. If you look at my posts over time you'll see my opinions about druids gradually deteriorated over time, that's partially due to when DODH came out I started grouping again*. Could I keep up fine healing in virtually any of the content? you bet. But being a person who does things multiple times over with multiple classes, I guess the weaknesses of druids are more apparent to me.

The main weakness with druids is mana regen. MR is more apparent in grouping situations than raiding ones.

Yea but I do group up / solo from time to time as well.

You do have a point though, when it comes to regening mana we aren't the best, or nearly as close to other priests. Shammies have Canni, Clerics have Yaulp and their heals are way more effective, that leaves us with our 9 mana/tick from Steeloak and our 5 mana/tick from Mask.

I personally would like an upgrade to our "Complete Heal". And since the entire point of this topic was balance with content, since with newer content tanks can reach upwards of 16k hps, how about giving us a heal that can heal that effectively
They aren't going to upgrade it. Quit whining. They won't do it for clerics and they won't do it for us. End of Story. Adapt and learn to do without it or try lower level content.

I think a lot of people would just like something that makes them more attractive to groups. I wonder how many of the Anguish geared crowd actually LFG anymore? (This isn't a blast or put down, or Uber Vs Casuals attack, I just meant that most people in high end guilds tend to only group with guildies, and are not usually in any LFG situations) Regardless of how well you play your druid, the rest of the world still needs to realize that the holy trinity (cleric, slower, tank) is no longer needed, and on a lot of servers, people are still scared to group with a druid as a MH, or only healer.
I've gone /lfg every once in a while. Usually I find that I'm able to be more than adequately heal for the content they want to do. If people are scared to do content with a druid as MH then if that's what you want to do as a druid, it's up to you to prove to them that druids can, one group at a time.

You stated somewhere that most your playtime is spent raiding, Nim. Raiding aspects are more balanced than group aspects so I can see why your oblivious to most of our weaknesses.
How the hell do you know what people are oblivious to?

I do put /lfg on while afk over time just to see how many people ask. However, if I put my warrior on /lfg I ususally get 2+ invites within the first 5 minutes.
That's probably due to the class make-up of the server. =/

But being a person who does things multiple times over with multiple classes, I guess the weaknesses of druids are more apparent to me.

Comparing your knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses to the knowledge of others is something I find a bit arrogant. If you want to make a case, make it. Don't base your agruments on the assumption that you know more than others and that's why you're right.

They aren't going to upgrade it. Quit whining. They won't do it for clerics and they won't do it for us. End of Story. Adapt and learn to do without it or try lower level content.
[

Sorry, I thought you asked for what we thought about druid balance. I didn't know that posting my thoughts constituted as whining, my apologies. I must have missed yet another memo, along with the one that states how you speak for every druid out there.

If you want me to reply to that post Dayuna feel free to put everything into context instead of taking bits and pieces acting like they're separate statements.

I've stated my take on druid dps, but here it is again. Druids are a > Priest < class. Our primary function is NOT to do dps. Our primary function is to HEAL

And here is the bit that started it all for me. We may be a priest class, but our primary function IS NOT TO HEAL, but to provide SUPPORT, just like the other supporting priest class, the Shaman. I have said this time and time again, if you want to heal, roll a cleric.

personally would like an upgrade to our "Complete Heal". And since the entire point of this topic was balance with content, since with newer content tanks can reach upwards of 16k hps, how about giving us a heal that can heal that effectively

This was my whine. I personally have no problems healing anywhere, with a mana pool of a little more than 6300. I wouldn't mind seeing some additional improvemnt in the mana regen line either, but I am not asking (sorry, whining) for that either.

Comparing your knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses to the knowledge of others is something I find a bit arrogant. If you want to make a case, make it. Don't base your agruments on the assumption that you know more than others and that's why you're right.

And this comment I found the most amusing, considering this entire post you have been picking people apart for their opinions, which differ from your own. I have only been playing since POP came out,for the last three years, so I do not pretend to know everything about the game. I do know that druids where once considered very overpowered (The saying Drood is not a compliment)
So people would like some changes made to their class. Great, you are perfectly content with your role. Change NEVER happens if people don't speak up. And your repeated use of "try lower level content" is a comment I find very condescending. We all pay the same monthly fee, which entitles us all to the same playing field.

Ok guys this is getting out hand.

This is a rant board, not a druid balance board. Therefore I consider this thread a 'rant' not a means to balance druids. Dayuna isn't acting like the voice of all druids either. Again, this is a rant, this is not by any means a letter to Sony about druids, not a final statement about how druids feel, etc etc. So chill out.

You can agree to this thread or not, but don't let this get out of hand. This is a low moderation board but moderation still applies. If you disagree with a point reply to it respectfully not with these shady comments that might make this escalate into something we don't want.

i agree with you pretty much, if you dont, take a look at my magelo, thats all i have to say

So people would like some changes made to their class. Great, you are perfectly content with your role. Change NEVER happens if people don't speak up. And your repeated use of "try lower level content" is a comment I find very condescending. We all pay the same monthly fee, which entitles us all to the same playing field.

Some changes, like the recent E'ci / Glacier change to test was justified in its complaints becuase the druid class as a whole has had issues with it for a long time now.

Other changes, like - we need to heal better becuase *I* can't heal X area, are not justified becuase they tend to relate to gear, aa, and skill level. A Highly skilled player may be able to heal for a area fine, and gear and aa will only extend the period they can heal for, not how well they can heal in the first place.

IE: If you don't know when to patch, then no level of aa or gear will teach you that.

Where as, if you know when to patch, aa and gear may give you a few extra seconds or heal for a few hundard more hp per heal making it easier on you - but bottom line you still need to know when to cast.

Finally, we all pay the same amount per month, but quite frankly, what you are entilted to in the game relates directly to how much work your willing to put into it.

You will never see: VP, VT, Anguish etc without puting in the work to camp the parts required for access. This is why I am a much bigger fan of key quests over flagging. You are entilited only to what you have worked for, and nothing more - reguardless of how much you pay to play the game.

-Fenier

Fenier, I do agree with your points about keying. It took me forever to get my VP key, and on my server, it's empty, but the feeling of accomplishment was worth it (irony being I ruined ROS faction long ago). And the VT key was worth it also, as I have a list of goals and zones I would like to see.

If I seemed a little teed off, I am sorry. I am not a debater, and have never pretended to have great debate skills. I just hate heariing someone tell me to quit whining about my opinions. I tend to take that personally, even knowing this is a rant board, and not for the thin skinned.

If you want me to reply to that post Dayuna feel free to put everything into context instead of taking bits and pieces acting like they're separate statements.
Okay:
I see several parts of your post that appear to indicate that you believe that your opinion is superior to others because you play other classes and others are "oblivious to most of our weaknesses" because we spend the majority of our time raiding and have better equipment than the average druid. I assure you this isn't the case and that it's a fallacy to assume things like that. I can see the weaknesses of the druid class from a different viewpoint in that I've seen a lot of content and I know what druids are capable of in many different situations.

And here is the bit that started it all for me. We may be a priest class, but our primary function IS NOT TO HEAL, but to provide SUPPORT, just like the other supporting priest class, the Shaman. I have said this time and time again, if you want to heal, roll a cleric.
Assuming your definition of a druid being a support class, how do you support your group/raid? Odds are it's with heals, buffs, and debuffs, and a bit of dps thrown in too. DPS isn't our primary function. We can't even get close to dps classes in damage output right now in groups and even if we could we'd still not be able to sustain it. Our debuffs are good for FR only (maybe CR soon if it goes live, which it prolly will). We have several buffs that are useful, but not preferred by most players in exp groups due to the duration, unless we're present in the group. That leaves healing. Some people don't like that we don't have really good heals, but I find them more than adequate for all content. We're geared to be back-up healers, but we can step up to main healers in a group if needed. So in very general terms what I'm seeing as being support: healing, debuffing, buffing mainly. We buff once every hour and a half (unless there's a death or using regen/ds), we debuff mobs sometimes (almost never fully except on raids), and we heal. Out of all of those I see healing standing as the most prevelant tbh. I would call druids healers as our primary role, support as secondary, and dps as a last resort/other stuff we can do.

And this comment I found the most amusing, considering this entire post you have been picking people apart for their opinions, which differ from your own. I have only been playing since POP came out,for the last three years, so I do not pretend to know everything about the game. I do know that druids where once considered very overpowered (The saying Drood is not a compliment)
So people would like some changes made to their class. Great, you are perfectly content with your role. Change NEVER happens if people don't speak up. And your repeated use of "try lower level content" is a comment I find very condescending. We all pay the same monthly fee, which entitles us all to the same playing field.
I pick peoples opinions apart because that's how I counter the points they make. If you can present a point that I can't counter, then I'll be happy to concede that. As for the "try lower level content" I mean to go back to older content and level on that like most of the "uber" druids did if you can't hack in in the newest stuff. Most of the EQ population is max level or 65+ so more content is released for the people at that level. That means that less content is geared towards the lower level players and that there's a progression of things through the expansions. Just because a new expansion is out doesn't mean that we have to be able to do everything in it at every level. I'd hate to be the person in pofear gear trying Tipt or the likes, they would be better off going through content in luclin and pop first! The big point here is that there was a time before monster missions, there was a time before the tutorial, there was a time before they made the game easier and players still made it to the top without the ease of things today and there's no reason any random druid can't follow the progression too.

I pick peoples opinions apart because that's how I counter the points they make. If you can present a point that I can't counter, then I'll be happy to concede that.

Then prove me wrong. Prove that newer players CAN follow the same old progression, just as easily as it was way back when.

I would love you to show me that a person can now start raiding velious with no aa's, and move on up through ssra. They may have made the game itself easier, and that I will not contest. However, they most definately haven't made entering the end game any easier, if anything, it is more difficult. At least back in the day (circa 2002) all you needed was to be a certain level and have some resist gear. Now you need to have a certain level, certain aa's, certain gear WITH certain resists...which altogether still takes longer than hitting level 60/65 back in the day, with just resist gear.

fenier,golthine>> agree, keys better than flags cause even casuals can get them, although much slower and with more difficulty. I like the dod mission set model .. all ubers completed them in 1 week.. us will take months but we CAN get there too. Like dreadspire. And it feels great.

>>dayuna: If you can present a point that I can't counter, then I'll be happy to concede that.

Not.. if someone writes a point you cant counter you just attack other statements ignoring the one you cant counter, trying in this way to invalidate ALL assertions in the original post. I saw you doing that more than once on this thread.

And you are just attacking everybody on the basis on "i am great cause i heal, have 10000aa and uber gear, and only want to do that and thats what we are for, if you think differently/have lesser gear/want to play in a different way you suck and are a winer and go to hell (kunark)". Try respecting other people's opinions, and see their point of view .. although i doubt you can. You just want to prevail, not discuss. Where you are from? .. do you have relatives escaped in Brazil, SouthAfrica or Argentina 60 years ago and wearing on the arm strange white crosses on black field?

I would love you to show me that a person can now start raiding velious with no aa's, and move on up through ssra. They may have made the game itself easier, and that I will not contest. However, they most definately haven't made entering the end game any easier, if anything, it is more difficult.

I really don't think for most people the game starts at Kunark and Velious anymore.

Sure, they may level there, but for most people raiding starts in two places now: Ssra Temple/Vex Thal, or PoP Flag Progression

That said, your not required really to have resist focused gear for either Ssra/VT or Tier 1 Bosses really (with the exception of Behemoth).

So entering the raiding scene isn't so bad. However when you have people skipping 3-5 years worth of content and trying to start raiding in Elementals, Ikkinz+ or MPG Trials, you are going to run into serious issues.

Thus, at least in my opinion, SoE introduced new methods of getting people upto par with the current high end content.

1: They added DoN Racial Armor, which the grandmaster stuff Rivals several Elemental Pieces. Is it as good as elemental? No, but it comes pretty close.

2: Tier One Omens of War armor was added, enabling people to quest a entire set with only two? multigroup events for BP / Legs.

3: They added decent (not steller, but decent), Armor sets to the DoN merchants for players ranging from 58-70.

4: You can now purchase nearly any focus or amount of FT you desire for whatever class you want to play via LDoN/DoN/DoD and Omens Augs.

I grant you not all content should be bypassed, but you can realistically never raid, get a full Suit of Gm amor, grind some AA, and work the 6 MPG Trials and after you aug the stuff come out with a suit of armor rivialing a Time Geared Player.

This is esp true now that virually every Non-Ancient spell can be purchased or researched with a minor few still being Quest Only.

I do however, agree that it requires more work, but they havn't made it harder really do that work at all.

-Fenier

and others are "oblivious to most of our weaknesses" because we spend the majority of our time raiding and have better equipment than the average druid.

a) Oblivious was used for only lack of terms. It was not intended to be used in a strong of offensive context.
b) If your name isn't Nimchip (ie the person who doesn't understand why people find problems with druids*), than the statement wasn't directed to you.
c) What does gear have to do with anything?

*Not trying to put words into his mouth... I think he's saying he doesn't understand why people find problems with druids, but maybe he just doesn't like how people state their thoughts about the problems (ie the whining.)


Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by Nimchip
I swear to god everytime a whines comes up here in TDG or in EQlive druid boards (which i frequently browse but i don't bother replying to) it makes me realize how much i LOVE my class, because quite frankly i must be playing a god-like druid to not understand at all why people whine so much about the class i'm playing.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

You stated somewhere that most your playtime is spent raiding, Nim. Raiding aspects are more balanced than group aspects so I can see why your oblivious to most of our weaknesses.

--

you believe that your opinion is superior to others because you play other classes

As far as determining druid's weaknesses through a viewpoint of balance with other classes, is there a better way to go about it than to actually experiance the classes your comparing to first hand?

I can see the weaknesses of the druid class from a different viewpoint in that I've seen a lot of content and I know what druids are capable of in many different situations.

Different viewpoint? elaborate how the same content both of us do is somehow different to you...

all ubers completed them in 1 week.. us will take months but we CAN get there too. Like dreadspire. And it feels great.

Dreadspire is a mere 4 quests/missions It should not take anyone months to complete DS Access if they are working on it.



And you are just attacking everybody on the basis on "i am great cause i heal, have 10000aa and uber gear, and only want to do that and thats what we are for, if you think differently/have lesser gear/want to play in a different way you suck and are a winer and go to hell (kunark)". Try respecting other people's opinions, and see their point of view .. although i doubt you can. You just want to prevail, not discuss. Where you are from? .. do you have relatives escaped in Brazil, SouthAfrica or Argentina 60 years ago and wearing on the arm strange white crosses on black field?

First off, that last comment is *way* out of line.

Secondly - Kunark was a awesome expansion and I doubt you can find better exp for mid 50s then Howling Stones.

Third: You havn't really made a solid factual opinion. You don't reasearch what you claim is true, and thus its easy to deflect as incorrect.

Dayuna's Gear and AA layout has little to do with it. He could be in Full Ornate and still have valid opinions on how druids should be. The fact he is higher merely gives him more experiance across a broader field to form those views.

-Fenier

>>First off, that last comment is *way* out of line.
Fenier why dont you let her show up how good she is defending as much as attacking? does she/he need a nurse?

>>Secondly - Kunark was a awesome expansion and I doubt you can find better exp for mid 50s then Howling Stones.
we talking current content, lev 65-70.

>>Third: You havn't really made a solid factual opinion. You don't reasearch what you claim is true, and thus its easy to deflect as incorrect.
WELL lots of your "deflections" were incorrect. And the questions i asked were never answered.

Fenier why dont you let her show up how good she is defending as much as attacking? does she/he need a nurse?

Becuase your comment is quite frankly pretty racist, and its not acceptable.


we talking current content, lev 65-70.


The Exp in Veeshan's Peak (Kunark Zone!) isnt all that bad actually.


dont care. He talks about high end/raid game, i talk about casual gaming. 2 different games. He cannot talk of my game as much as I cannot talk of his, unless he restarts a druid (no twinking) and tries honestly (which i doubt he can do) how it is.

The differance is, he can drop down and do casual play, just as well as you could step up and do raid level play. So really, unless your talking specfic raid encounters, both of you should be able to comment decently on grouping.

There is nothing preventing you from working your AA like he has, and quite honestly, he did it when the game was harder then it is now. Lesson of the Devoted? I remember when 1 AA an hour was incrediable, now with lesson its possiable to do 4-5 in 30 minutes.

-Fenier

>>Becuase your comment is quite frankly pretty racist, and its not acceptable.
there was no reference to race in what i said .. and there will never be, please dont say wrong thing. Offensive yes, it was willingly offensive .. racist not.

>>The Exp in Veeshan's Peak (Kunark Zone!) isnt all that bad actually.
nice ..

>>The differance is, he can drop down and do casual play, just as well as you could step up and do raid level play. So really, unless your talking specfic raid encounters, both of you should be able to comment decently on grouping.
not sorry .. his casual play will never be like my casual play .. nor my raiding is similar to his and never will be. Time requirements for raiding guilds are impossible for me.

>>There is nothing preventing you from working your AA like he has, and quite honestly, he did it when the game was harder then it is now. Lesson of the Devoted? I remember when 1 AA an hour was incrediable, now with lesson its possiable to do 4-5 in 30 minutes.

I am working on aa .. just dinged 400. 4-5 aa in 30 minutes? lovely! where? what? please dont be generic and substantiate your assertions.

there was no reference to race in what i said .. and there will never be, please dont say wrong thing. Offensive yes, it was willingly offensive .. racist not.

I disagree.


not sorry .. his casual play will never be like my casual play .. nor my raiding is similar to his and never will be. Time requirements for raiding guilds are impossible for me.


If he is doing content for his level, and you are doing content for your level - how is this differant, you bth should run into similar issues.

I am working on aa .. just dinged 400. 4-5 aa in 30 minutes? lovely! where? what? please dont be generic and substantiate your assertions.

Lair of the Black Wing, Nest Mission, Lesson of the Devoted, high pull/kill rate.

Fenier>>I disagree.
Bah it seems self evident to me that there is nothing about race .. so please show me the exact words that let you thing there is .. are we speaking the same language?

Fenier>>you bth should run into similar issues
Appearently not .. this is all this thread is about (and flames)

Fenier >>Lair of the Black Wing, Nest Mission, Lesson of the Devoted, high pull/kill rate.
Thanks a lot .. solo or grouped? Will try it tonight<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

I disagree.
Bah it seems self evident to me that there is nothing about race .. so please show me the exact words that let you thing there is .. are we speaking the same language?

Apparently not.

Thanks a lot .. solo or grouped? Will try it tonight<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

Lair of the Black Wing is a Group Mission.

Then prove me wrong. Prove that newer players CAN follow the same old progression, just as easily as it was way back when.

I would love you to show me that a person can now start raiding velious with no aa's, and move on up through ssra. They may have made the game itself easier, and that I will not contest. However, they most definately haven't made entering the end game any easier, if anything, it is more difficult. At least back in the day (circa 2002) all you needed was to be a certain level and have some resist gear. Now you need to have a certain level, certain aa's, certain gear WITH certain resists...which altogether still takes longer than hitting level 60/65 back in the day, with just resist gear.
Start with giants in Kael arena for armor quests and faction, move on to ToV, then on to the minis in GE, The Deep, AR, and AC. Following that move on to Ssra and then VT. At this point you can start doing lower tier PoP targets and move on from there. Yes, it's a bit slow but quite frankly you can do it. And bazaar gear can let you skip Kael (probably more) altogether these days. Guilds have started from there in the past and could do so today. As for entering the game, they've granted a huge boost to the lower level heals, the tutorial and newbie armor quests were added in, and the best change of all... sense heading comes maxed at character creation ^,^ (I wish that was the case when I made my character =/).

Not.. if someone writes a point you cant counter you just attack other statements ignoring the one you cant counter, trying in this way to invalidate ALL assertions in the original post. I saw you doing that more than once on this thread.

And you are just attacking everybody on the basis on "i am great cause i heal, have 10000aa and uber gear, and only want to do that and thats what we are for, if you think differently/have lesser gear/want to play in a different way you suck and are a winer and go to hell (kunark)". Try respecting other people's opinions, and see their point of view .. although i doubt you can. You just want to prevail, not discuss. Where you are from? .. do you have relatives escaped in Brazil, SouthAfrica or Argentina 60 years ago and wearing on the arm strange white crosses on black field?
I make my claims based on my knowledge of the druid class and links to other EQ resources. I will argue my points if you dispute them and if I don't think you understand my point of view as well. But in all honesty I don't understand your point of view as you haven't made it clear. I've seen you make some rather odd claims that I didn't agree with and I attempted to prove to you that what you were claiming was wrong.

WELL lots of your "deflections" were incorrect. And the questions i asked were never answered.
Give me some quotes of these questions and I'll do my best to answer them. And in exchange I am still waiting on an undisputable anwser to my question: what have druids lost? They haven't taken anything away from us that I've seen and in fact there have been many many gains as previously discussed.

As far as determining druid's weaknesses through a viewpoint of balance with other classes, is there a better way to go about it than to actually experience the classes your comparing to first hand?
I don't know if there's a better way, but there is an equal one. Grouping, raiding, and learning what you can about other classes from the people that play them.

Different viewpoint? elaborate how the same content both of us do is somehow different to you...
I apologize, I didn't know what content you were on and from the tone of your previous post it sounded as if you were talking from the point of view of a casual raider/grouper rather than the end game. But even then we probably have different playstyles and different ways of doing said content, thus different.

>>Fenier Apparently not.
Well if you cant quote the supposedly racist words then i am right and you are wrong =)

>>Dayuna what have druids lost?
For example (and in my case), ability to root mobs from long distance in the "rescue cicero" mission or in rss with savage root, because root is holding 10 seconds on average with noone hitting the mob, often being resisted or breaking immediatly. If it holds a minute or more for you, some other factor then level (as i assume we are both 70) must be coming in, i wonder which one. Is it stats? Resists? Some aa i dont know? Some item effect? (and i think i took all aa's helping root, although in description they only reduce chance of root breaking under attack) It has been said stats have no effect on root holding in other threads, then i really wonder whats happening to my savage root. And why in the same mission a rooting shaman had no problems in root holding?
BTW its not RNG .. this is a constant everywere with yellow mobs, i am saying that mission to give a precise context.

I must say i experienced a real improve in savage root holding in WOS since i raised my stats though. At lev 70, when i had 300 wis or less root on wos murkies was breaking immediatly, now with 415 wis and some other stat at about 330 it often lasts full duration.
But i dont have a parser for this, its hard to get these statistics.

Replacement is spore spiral, which has really short range but holds better. So as i experience it we lost the ability to root 70+ mobs from from long range and with quick recast. OR stats or something else is making your root better than mine and i CAN have longer lasting savage root with better equipment. OR i am bugged.

It is my OPINION that to effectively CC in "crowded" zones like rss we need a root that holds a mob out of melee range of the group toons.. either by rooting it before it arrives or by pushing it back.
and i EXPERIENCE that this is impossible with spore spiral due to short range and cast time and/or the too short pushback of the spell, hence i complain.

is this clear?

>>Fenier Apparently not.
Well if you cant quote the supposedly racist words then i am right and you are wrong =)

If you want to believe that, you are more then welcome, I am not derailing the thread to enter a personal cnflict of opinion with you over non-druid related issues.

If you want to believe that, you are more then welcome, I am not derailing the thread to enter a personal cnflict of opinion with you over non-druid related issues.
feel free fenier .. me neither. But i have to defend myself when someone says i did something wrong and i didnt.

I don't know if there's a better way, but there is an equal one. Grouping, raiding, and learning what you can about other classes from the people that play them.

That's like saying if I read a car review from Motor Trend magazine I know as much about the cars they're writing about as the test drivers. While I know you can learn a lot about class from watching them play, you really don't know the whole jist of them til you do it yourself. Also, A druid judging shamans and clerics healing abilties in groups is skewed since (hopefully) the druid is healing some too.

For example (and in my case), ability to root mobs from long distance in the "rescue cicero" mission or in rss with savage root, because root is holding 10 seconds on average with noone hitting the mob, often being resisted or breaking immediatly. If it holds a minute or more for you, some other factor then level (as i assume we are both 70) must be coming in, i wonder which one. Is it stats? Resists? Some aa i dont know? Some item effect? (and i think i took all aa's helping root, although in description they only reduce chance of root breaking under attack) It has been said stats have no effect on root holding in other threads, then i really wonder whats happening to my savage root. And why in the same mission a rooting shaman had no problems in root holding?
BTW its not RNG .. this is a constant everywere with yellow mobs, i am saying that mission to give a precise context.

I must say i experienced a real improve in savage root holding in WOS since i raised my stats though. At lev 70, when i had 300 wis or less root on wos murkies was breaking immediatly, now with 415 wis and some other stat at about 330 it often lasts full duration.
But i dont have a parser for this, its hard to get these statistics.

Replacement is spore spiral, which has really short range but holds better. So as i experience it we lost the ability to root 70+ mobs from from long range and with quick recast. OR stats or something else is making your root better than mine and i CAN have longer lasting savage root with better equipment. OR i am bugged.

It is my OPINION that to effectively CC in "crowded" zones like rss we need a root that holds a mob out of melee range of the group toons.. either by rooting it before it arrives or by pushing it back.
and i EXPERIENCE that this is impossible with spore spiral due to short range and cast time and/or the too short pushback of the spell, hence i complain.

is this clear?
I don't see anything that we've lost in that, "we haven't gained" is a far more appropriate way to state this and in my opinion we have gained, it just isn't working atm. As for how savage roots works, I haven't had any problems with it breaking near constantly or over-resisted so I really don't know why you have that problem =/. As for root CC, it's still quite possible to do in crowded areas, just need to be able to take a hit or two. As for spore spiral, it just needs to be fixed to work as intended (as stated previously).

In line with your comment to Fenier: you still haven't shown me "the questions i asked were never answered", does this mean that "i am right and you are wrong =)"?:tongue:
As to that comment, perhaps this (http://www.allstates-flag.com//fotw/flags/za%7Dnaz.html) is what you meant? Calling me and my family racist is something of a personal attack and quite frankly I find that quite offensive. But if that's how you want to play, here is my response (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/120699_Taunt_Orc.html).

I don't see anything that we've lost in that, "we haven't gained" is a far more appropriate way to state this and in my opinion we have gained, it just isn't working atm. As for how savage roots works, I haven't had any problems with it breaking near constantly or over-resisted so I really don't know why you have that problem =/. As for root CC, it's still quite possible to do in crowded areas, just need to be able to take a hit or two. As for spore spiral, it just needs to be fixed to work as intended (as stated previously)..

:bubbrubb2 Yes i think we start understanding each other :wiggle:

>>In line with your comment to Fenier: you still haven't shown me "the questions i asked were never answered", does this mean that "i am right and you are wrong =)"?:tongue:
yes until i demonstrate otherwise .. i have a work too (and i am sucking at it until i stop reading/writing on this thread!!!) AAARGHH.

>>As to that comment, perhaps this (http://www.allstates-flag.com//fotw/flags/za%7Dnaz.html) is what you meant? Calling me and my family racist is something of a personal attack and quite frankly I find that quite offensive. But if that's how you want to play, here is my response (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/120699_Taunt_Orc.html)
when the going gets tough .. the tough gets going. WELL that was definitely unkempt .. so i retire it with my apologies considering we both speak orkish now. WHY ORKS CANT BE DRUIDS? or are orks druids which became unkept enough? :physics:

Dorda, don't bring in RL discussions into this thread, they have NOTHING to do with the thread, and quite frankly... this thread is getting WAY WAY out of hand fast.

b) If your name isn't Nimchip (ie the person who doesn't understand why people find problems with druids*), than the statement wasn't directed to you.

I understand why people find problems with druids, however, I am fine with the way my druid is atm. If I were to play a cleric for example, of course I would find problems by comparison. However, and answer me this, if you hadn't ever played your bots or chars, would you have felt the same way about your druid as you do now?
Which brings me to the next point, most of the people that complain about the same things about druids have no other characters other than their druid itself, how do you think they come up with their worries about druids?

Which brings me to the next point, most of the people that complain about the same things about druids have no other characters other than their druid itself, how do you think they come up with their worries about druids?

The worries from a lot of those people differ from my own. ie- My complaint is mana regen*, their complaint is no XP rez.

I'm not saying if you don't play other classes you can't find problems about your own, just some that you may not have thought of before could become more apparent.

*my only other complaint about our class is that we didn't get a fair progression with Dawnstrike's base damage compared to others - which is strictly a numbers thing.

--

if you hadn't ever played your bots or chars, would you have felt the same way about your druid as you do now?

Most likely not. For example, it's disheartning when I can log on my necro twink and do 2x the sustained dps as my druid.

However, to be honest my problems with druids aren't as strong as I may lead on. I just don't like sitting back acting like everything is fine when it could be better.

The worries from a lot of those people differ from my own. ie- My complaint is mana regen*, their complaint is no XP rez.

I'm not saying if you don't play other classes you can't find problems about your own, just some that you may not have thought of before could become more apparent.

*my only other complaint about our class is that we didn't get a fair progression with Dawnstrike's base damage compared to others - which is strictly a numbers thing.

Exactly, and perhaps the original poster and me were wrong somewhat when it comes to "whining". There are some valid points that some druids make such as yourself, but they get lost in the midst of all these senseless rants if you get my drift.

Very true!

Nim's only problem is he can't catch up to Bilmani on eqrankings fast enough...=p

Yes, there might be problems, but I hear people whining "omg I just got 70 and I can't heal in RS waaahhhhh" it's those people I'd like to quit whining. Anything progression related from levels 1 to 65 has been done in the past by thousands of druids and honestly the only thing I found to be a pita was that Dulak's Harbor quest for Healing Waters. Anything level 65+ that relates to druid balance is quite debatable, but my intent was to say quit whining just because you don't have the AAs to heal in the top zones, or you can't crit like mages, or you can't do this or that. I admit there are probably balance issues with druids in the overall scheme of things, and I'm sure that at least some of the ideas on the top 10 list aren't just people complaining that the game isn't easy enough.

I have what seems to be a semi-unique outlook on what druids are and what they are supposed to be, and I don't believe dps is a primary function of druids. Secondary maybe. I think we dish out plenty of damage and we have a means to sustain damage output through DoTs, or burst damage with nukes. Our utility is something amazing in it's entirety. CC, snare, damage mitigation (yes... damage mitigation, Hungry Vines (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5349&source=Live) for the win ^,^), buffs of varying sorts, etc... If there were a generalist slot reserved for a class, druids would be the #1 pick for it in my rather biased opinion. Due to this outlook on the druid class as healers first, dps/utility second, I really see no basis for any sort of dps argument. I can heal just fine and quite sustainably for RS and the Nest and as such I assume that anybody who puts in the same amount of work can do the same.

That said, I also love a good debate, and I really do listen. I just think some people have some ideas that are way off-base and I point that out =p

I have to say that overall, I am happy with my druid (Although I agree with Kamion on the mana regen issue-capped on FT and STILL takes forever to regen back-but I also have a necro twink, and after SoS, NO mana regen can compare :) ) I can do pretty decent DPS, and I have been told I am a decent healer, so, like I said, no complaints, I just feel there are some tweaks the developers could do here and there. I will end it at that, so that this thread does not become the "thread that will not die"

Threads that don't die are fun though! Hell, we have 8 pages of rambling... let's go for at least 2 more!

Ok, but now this is just for the sake of bringing my post count up!! On the rambling note, anyone but me ever wonder why they never activated some of the other druid rings? The one in OOT is in a pretty nasty spot, but I remeber when I needed Faydedar for my epic (before he became so silly easy) I also used to wish for one in TD. Side note, when doing the fight, it is not wise to bind at the inn by the water....

wtb Greater Faydark port... there's a druid ring there already too =/ Sony is such a tease =p

if your a wood elf just use origin, or just use butcherblock lazy bastid

Or just click the PoK to Gfay stone....

... or use the guild portal to gfay....

.. or take the Nexus Spires..

But even then we probably have different playstyles and different ways of doing said content, thus different.

yes... damage mitigation, Hungry Vines (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5349&source=Live) for the win ^,^)

I agree with the first statement now - 500 mana for 1600 hp 20% mitagation / 45 ds for the lose.

Hungry vines was invented so we could tank time gods easier!

--

wtb Greater Faydark port... there's a druid ring there already too =/ Sony is such a tease =p

I'm all for more ports~

Hungry vines was invented so we could tank time gods easier!

heh, I use it alot when solo tanking things

-Fenier

... On the rambling note, anyone but me ever wonder why they never activated some of the other druid rings? The one in OOT is in a pretty nasty spot...

Couldn't have been any worse than porting into WL in the Velious days before you had dragon faction and praying that Wunshi didn't eat you. Or the Cobalt Scar portal when that one gimp named drake would be at the port in. Although CS was the best IMO, b/c i could put the tooth (key) in the bank and cast the group port and it would just reset me to the safe spot in whatever zone I was in and send whoever else in the group had the tooth to CS without me.

Back in the day I used to tell everyone that bought a port "I'll port you there for 200pp, and if you die tough luck I'm not porting back."

About the Gfay port, I'm aware of the many easy ways to get there =p
I think it would just make sense from an RP standpoint to have one to near the wood elf hometown (as opposed to the opposite side of the next zone over).

Hungry Vines works on the whole group though, can take at least a little bit of the sting out of a bad pull in RS or something =p

I have what seems to be a semi-unique outlook on what druids are and what they are supposed to be, and I don't believe dps is a primary function of druids.

When all is said and done Druids have two primary areas in which they have long lines of spells: healing and nukes. (And snaring now, I guess)

There is however a fundamental problem with these two abilities that in the past made it difficult to keep druids balanced, and will continue to cause the developers headaches.
Both are primarily single target, direct cast spells. This means that unlike most other 'hybrids' (if you want to consider druids a cleric-wizard hybrid) druids have two abilities that interfere with rather than support each other.

This is a problem because it means that druids can cast either a heal (primary task one) or throw a nuke (primary task two), but not both. That in itself is not necessarily a problem, but it means that druids must be quite powerful healers AND quite powerful damage casters, or there would be no point of having them at all. This gives the developers a very narrow margin of error between too powerful and completely useless. Any new expansion can accidentally shove us out of the safe zone again.

This late in the day there is no real solution to the problem, short of a complete overhaul of the entire class and the entire spell and equipment lineup.
What would help is making druids over time specialists (so they can run both heals and damage at the same time, both of which would of necessity be quite a bit weaker than our direct cast spells are now).
Or druids could be given a range of damage buffs (making them good at shortening fights considerably at the cost of increased risk).
Stances will help too, of course, in that they allow one aspect of the druid ability to be strengthened at the expense of the other, widening the margin of error for the developers in getting the relative powers of all spells, equipment and AA over a range of levels exactly right. That will come at the cost of some of the much tauted (but frequently overhyped) druid flexibility.

If there were a generalist slot reserved for a class, druids would be the #1 pick for it in my rather biased opinion.

I do not think your opinion is biased and I think few would disagree with you. The problem is, though, that EQ is a relatively static environment. People go into zones knowing pretty much what to expect so rather than adding a generalist like druid or bard for the 'just in case' situations they can confidentially pick a specialist who can get the main job done better, quicker and longer, because they know there likely will not be a 'just in case' situation.

Due to this outlook on the druid class as healers first, dps/utility second, I really see no basis for any sort of dps argument. I can heal just fine and quite sustainably for RS and the Nest and as such I assume that anybody who puts in the same amount of work can do the same.

I have no doubt that you can heal comfortably, and there are enough reports of others who say the same, given the necessary equipment and AAs. Part of the debate of course has always been how hard it was for some classes relative to others, to get those necessities. Now this is not something I have experience with so I have no idea how much was hyperbole, but at some point the comparison was made that a cleric of 58 or so levels with equipment halfway through the planes progression could still outheal a druid of 65 levels in time gear. If that were true then it meant that druids had to put quite a bit more effort in becoming capable for certain zones and events than clerics. (this complaint was made when GoD was still new and from what I have read here, the developers have learned of their mistakes there and made the necessary acquirement curve not quite so steep in later expansions).

It also does not adress the fact that druids do have some powerful damage spells as well as debuffs to set them up. In other words, druids have the tools for a damage dealing role, even if you, and many others, chose not to pursue that role. Those however that do may have legitimate complaints about that aspect of being a druid.



Eri

Eri,

I disagree with your assertion that they have to be careful with druids and the balance of nukes/heals.

In my opinion, balance is achieved by our mana pool. I can chain cast nukes or i can chain cast heals. Not both.

This recurring theme of "we are priests" kinda bugs me... so what? Are there not battle priests? Are there not priests that can call down the wrath of thier god(s) (or nature)? Where is the idea that priests ARE healers coming from? My view is that priests CAN heal.

No, I don't think we should heal as well as a cleric. I *do* think we should have a bit more in the toolkit. A small HoT and/or a 1 sec cast heal that does about what Nature's Touch can do.

I think clerics should get a bit more versatility. I don't know that their nukes need to be bigger but I think they should be more varied. When all is said and done, I am not a cleric, ask them what they need.

I do believe that *all* priests should be equal across the board on cures.

No, I don't think we should be equal to a wizard. But we are falling behind now quickly. We are not even in synch with mages anymore.

Yes, I think they should take our magic DoTs back to short duration, higher damage. Yes I think our cold nukes should go back to higher damage, more mana. It's the DPS. S is for second.

Yes we can heal and we can nuke. We can't do both at the same time. Even with 11.5k mana raid buffed I can't just toss Ancient nukes and Ancient heals around without going OOM very quickly.

When people respond with "well you should have rolled a cleric/wizard", I disagree. Maybe *they* should have rolled a druid.

Yeah, I have my bitches and my whines. But overall I'm fairly happy. There are times (say during Ture) where I get pissed as hell that I have to keep a group alive with single cast cures and heals, but doing it and having the group members comment on it is satisfactory. Not happy enough that I won't try other games when they come out but happy enough to stay until something better comes along.

Eri,

I disagree with your assertion that they have to be careful with druids and the balance of nukes/heals.

In my opinion, balance is achieved by our mana pool. I can chain cast nukes or i can chain cast heals. Not both.

Well, that is kind of the point I was making. That both main abilities of druids are kind of excluding each other. In most other hybrids the abilities are more supportive of each other (e.g. a paladin with a extremely quick small group heal supports his or her tanking role. Would the paladins have gotten a complete heal they still would have not much use for it because there is no way they can channel that through).
Druids have two things they are good at, but can do only one of them at a time. That is a bit counter-intuitive. Note that it is not so much the mana pool that limits druids though as well as the time needed to get all those spells off. There is not much in the way of group heals or heal over time. The big damage spells are relatively slow casting nukes. At any given time a druid must decide whether to heal for the next 3 or 4 seconds or to nuke. That is assuming it is in fact possible to load both primary and supportive spells in the gem bar. (i.e. heal but heal supportive and nuke plus nuke support and snares and evac is not going to fit) in which case the druid must decide for a most longer duration whether to be a healer or a damage dealer. Not much flexibility if it requires sitting down and 60 seconds to switch focus.

The reason why this duality makes it difficult to balance druids against other classes follows from that in fact. When a druid becomes primarily a healer then he or she must be good enough at the job. With a limited line-up of spells and support spells for the role the raw healing power must be quite high. A druid who heals only half as good as a cleric is of no use in groups. A druid who can heal as good as 80 pct of a cleric is useful in most zones but the most challenging ones (for that cleric that is), but risks eclipsing that same cleric in much of the easier zones. The same is true for the wizard side of the hybrid, so we end up with a class that heals 80pct as good as a cleric and nukes 80pct as good as a wizard (though not at the same time). That does not leave a lot of wiggling room before the class becomes overpowered, and other classes will frequently feel that the sum of the druid abilities is 160pct, not 100pct, giving the false impression that they already are vastly overpowered.

Had the druids been designed to heal and deal damage primarily over time then it would have been much easier to do the number crunching for them.
Stances are another way to solve this. By making only one of the main abilities feasible at any given time (i.e. stance) then only that power needs to be considered. In the other stance it is too underpowered to be an option. Of course this better comes with a gem bar that switches with the stance, or the ability to change on the fly is pretty much shot to bits there and then.

However, I only wanted to explain why I think that the old design decision to give druids those two particular main abilities is still causing balancing problems for the developers, and that as the numbers get bigger small differences quickly add up to huge differences in performance.

This recurring theme of "we are priests" kinda bugs me... so what? Are there not battle priests? Are there not priests that can call down the wrath of thier god(s) (or nature)? Where is the idea that priests ARE healers coming from? My view is that priests CAN heal.

Of course druids did not start out as priests so much, but the actual problem is not that druids are considered priests, but that they are perceived not to be clerics. From Shamen it is understood that their slows help out, but druid nukes are not going to affect the outcome of a fight that visibly. The end result is that they are perceived as being underpowered clerics.

No, I don't think we should heal as well as a cleric. I *do* think we should have a bit more in the toolkit. A small HoT and/or a 1 sec cast heal that does about what Nature's Touch can do.

Actually, druids should heal as well as a cleric does. As should shamen. As well as. Not the same way.
This is the only way to make the game healthier in the long run and to cut down on the number of cleric bots or burned out clerics. The way the game is set up is that every group needs a healer. That means 1 in 6 players needs to be a healer. With almost 18 classes that means that 3 of them must be capable of the role. Whether or not all three healing classes are equally capable is up to debate of course.
Giving druid more cleric spells is not going to solve any problem that might exist. It should start with giving druids tools that bring their main abilities into play at the same time. The current abilities suggest that clerics further specialise into healing and defensive boosts (hitpoint buffs, shields, runes etc). Shamen into healing and debuff (slows, snare, AC debufss, ATK debuffs). Druids already have the healing and damage dealing. All it takes is making sure they can use those more or less at the same time, and perhaps concentrate more on the buff side of things (i.e. increasing damage output for the group).
Of course this is nothing I have not said before, and not something I expect to see, since it is too great a departure from the established abilities, especially on the druid spell lines.

I think clerics should get a bit more versatility. I don't know that their nukes need to be bigger but I think they should be more varied. When all is said and done, I am not a cleric, ask them what they need.

I do believe that *all* priests should be equal across the board on cures.

No, I don't think we should be equal to a wizard. But we are falling behind now quickly. We are not even in synch with mages anymore.

And with wizards and mages themselves complaining they are falling behind other damage dealers that is a potential problem. It does possibly show that currently the developers need druids to be priests and thus are pushing the healing ability. Or that they are -currently- focussing on healing problems and ignoring damage for the moment until they got the healing sorted out.

As for what clerics need, let them tell the developers. It is certainly not our place to decide, or even to discuss.

Yes, I think they should take our magic DoTs back to short duration, higher damage. Yes I think our cold nukes should go back to higher damage, more mana. It's the DPS. S is for second.

Or preferably, split the summon type of DoT spells (insects, drones) into somewhat lower damage longer duration spells with a debuff component and the fire type DoT spells (e.g. combust) into short duration higher damage (inefficient) versions that work well with the fire debuffs.
The ice spells remain AoE and lightning ones remain up to 4 targets in a small radius.
From what I understood they already did something like that with the fire and ice nukes, making one big and the other (more) mana efficient.

We can heal and we can nuke. We can't do both at the same time. Even with 11.5k mana raid buffed I can't just toss Ancient nukes and Ancient heals around without going OOM very quickly.

And that is assuming you can have both memorised without sacrificing other essential spells from your gem bar, and find the time to cast both without somebody going splat while the ancient nuke goes off.

When people respond with "well you should have rolled a cleric/wizard", I disagree. Maybe *they* should have rolled a druid.

That is now, and has always been, a silly argument yes. Pointing out that one class underperforms in a role it is expected to perform should be adressed. Either by showing that the idea is based on a misconception (i.e. saying, but if you do this or that you could perform that role), or by objectively stating the problem to the developers so they can adress it (i.e. saying, half the new zones are full of monsters who do this, but we can only do that in the time we have meaning we can not do our job properly)
Effectively saying 'if you do not like it then you should go away' is just plain rude and pointless. Misrepresenting a complaint (by saying: if you want to be able to do this you want to be class X) is equally pointless.
(not that I am saying you are guilty of that Aelfin, it is just a pet annoyance of mine that it is so often bandied about in otherwise reasonable discussions).


Eri

That is assuming it is in fact possible to load both primary and supportive spells in the gem bar. (i.e. heal but heal supportive and nuke plus nuke support and snares and evac is not going to fit) in which case the druid must decide for a most longer duration whether to be a healer or a damage dealer. Not much flexibility if it requires sitting down and 60 seconds to switch focus.

It is.

My Typical Spell Lineup:

Sylvan Infusion - Quick Heal
Karana's Renewal - Incomplete Heal
Dawnstrike/Chaos Frost, etc - Nuke
Wasp Swarm - Low Resist Check DoT
Serpent's Vines - Low Resist Check Snare
Savage Roots - Negative MR check, Non Damage Root
Eagle/Reptile/Debuff - Depending on focus and if its required
Egress / Succor = Evacs
Oaken Guard - DA Style Spell for when I am gettng beat on.

With that setup I can cover any content in at least 4 ways at once. I could specialize more if I had to, and do if I am attending a raid, but for most groups that setup works very well. I can drop Wasp Swarm for a Damage Shield if no mage is present.

A druid who can heal as good as 80 pct of a cleric is useful in most zones but the most challenging ones (for that cleric that is), but risks eclipsing that same cleric in much of the easier zones.

A Druid who has put forth the effort to become a excellant healer can heal in all ranges of content. They will run into issues where group healing or Divine Arb are nessercary, but there is no reason they can not adquatly heal a tank who is geared for the content just as well as a cleric can in terms of keeping the tank alive. They may use slightly more mana, but they are sure capable of keeping the tank from dying.


Of course druids did not start out as priests so much, but the actual problem is not that druids are considered priests, but that they are perceived not to be clerics. From Shamen it is understood that their slows help out, but druid nukes are not going to affect the outcome of a fight that visibly. The end result is that they are perceived as being underpowered clerics.


Perception is alot differant then what is actual. The Druid Class can do alot more then just heal and nuke. Just this morning infact I Healed, Pulled, Did CC, and tanked a few of the mobs with Reptile and Patching myself. If you do not use your full powers then yes, you will be perceived as being subimpressive.


This is the only way to make the game healthier in the long run and to cut down on the number of cleric bots or burned out clerics. The way the game is set up is that every group needs a healer. That means 1 in 6 players needs to be a healer. With almost 18 classes that means that 3 of them must be capable of the role. Whether or not all three healing classes are equally capable is up to debate of course
.

Clerics are overrated. I raid on ocassion with my girlfriend's guild which is just above Elemental and Starting Ikkinz. They completed Ikkinz 1 with 2 clerics and 3 Druids just last evening. Druids where 60 percent of the main healing force for said raid.

I really do not think there are any shortage of Druids in everquest, if people are unable to realize their potional, then that is the problem if the player, and its nothing SoE can solve.


Giving druid more cleric spells is not going to solve any problem that might exist. It should start with giving druids tools that bring their main abilities into play at the same time.

Hungery Vines, Barkspur and AA skills such as Covergance of Spirits have already shown signs this is what they are doing.

The current abilities suggest that clerics further specialise into healing and defensive boosts (hitpoint buffs, shields, runes etc).

Afaik, Enchanters are the main form of Runes, excluding the very limited Rune Divine Glory that paladin's get. Chanters and Wizards get spell only based runes, but Chanter is basically the only all purpose rune caster. Giving clerics a rune like that I do not think would go over well.


Shamen into healing and debuff (slows, snare, AC debufss, ATK debuffs).


Shamans to my knowledge, do not get attack debuffs, that is a druid only class trait. I would not be ok with giving it to shamans =p


Druids already have the healing and damage dealing. All it takes is making sure they can use those more or less at the same time, and perhaps concentrate more on the buff side of things (i.e. increasing damage output for the group).


You can cast both at the same time, and its even easier if you pick up spell haste and invest in AAs such as Quick Damage.

We already get Damage Shields and spells such as Lion's Strength. Our Epic 1.5/2.0 effects directly increase spell damage on a given mob and Nature's Guardian is a decent 60 seconds of free insta cast damage once every 30 minutes.


As for what clerics need, let them tell the developers. It is certainly not our place to decide, or even to discuss.

2 of 3 Cleric spells in Darkhollow where nukes. One of them was a Chromatic Resist Nuke, afaik, the only class to have a nuke to check on the lowest resist of a mob.

Or preferably, split the summon type of DoT spells (insects, drones) into somewhat lower damage longer duration spells with a debuff component and the fire type DoT spells (e.g. combust) into short duration higher damage (inefficient) versions that work well with the fire debuffs.

We have 3 DoT Lines.

Long Duration low resist Magic DoTs
Semi Long duration low damage Fire DoTs with Debuffs built in
High Powered Low Duration Vengance Line Fire DoTs.

This has already been done, just not in the order your suggesting.


And that is assuming you can have both memorised without sacrificing other essential spells from your gem bar, and find the time to cast both without somebody going splat while the ancient nuke goes off


DoTs are 3 second Cast, and since you want to make sure you get full duration out of them you would cast likely on incoming or within the first few seconds of the fight. The spell lineup I showed eariler could be adjusted over 100 differant ways to reflect play style and goal.

n/m missread debuff not buff

My spell line up looks liek this.

1. Karanas Renewal
2. Natures Infustion
3. Savage Roots
4. Ancient Clorobon
5. Oaken Guard
6. Random buff or Suns Corona
7. HoR or Glacier Breath
8. Serpents Vines
9. Ancient Glacier Frost/Fire Nuke

" Hungery Vines, Barkspur and AA skills such as Covergance of Spirits have already shown signs this is what they are doing. "

I think we should wait before we start considering Barkspur, or indeed any of the 3 new spells, a done deal.

" Hungery Vines, Barkspur and AA skills such as Covergance of Spirits have already shown signs this is what they are doing. "

I think we should wait before we start considering Barkspur, or indeed any of the 3 new spells, a done deal.

Even removing Barkspur from the sentance, the statement is still true.

.

I recently got my 68 DoD spell....and then watched it get nerfed....and you know what? I rarely use it. Why? Because I don't want peeps to know that Druids got a WONDERFULL new spell. I don't want to contribute in ANY way to the eventual nerfing of this spell's abilities...or the new line of MoB's that have some crappy little trick to either despell it or remove the benefits this spell gives.

A few of my EQ frineds know a of it and the LOVE it. FOr them I use it with the understanding to keep it the best kept secreet in EQ. And we use it knowing that soon...all too son...SOE wil nerf it to the point of uselessness.

Negative much?

Secondly, I don't recall Reptile having ever been adjusted since it went to live servers with release. Lets look at the history:

<TABLE class=spellview cellPadding=3 width="95%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=middle>2005-09-30 00:37</TD><TD class=spelldata>Changed Base2_2 from 400 to 0</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=middle>2005-09-30 00:37</TD><TD class=spelldata>Changed Base2_4 from 0 to 400</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=middle>2005-09-30 00:37</TD><TD class=spelldata>Added Slot 4: Add Defensive Proc: Skin of the Rep. Trigger rate mod 400</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=middle>2005-09-30 00:37</TD><TD class=spelldata>Removed Slot 2: Add Defensive Proc: Skin of the Rep. Trigger rate mod 400</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=middle>2005-09-16 23:27</TD><TD class=spelldata>Changed Slot 2 from "Decrease Melee Mitigation by 8009%" to "Add Defensive Proc: Skin of the Rep. Trigger rate mod 400"</TD></TR><TR><TD class=spelllabel align=middle>2005-09-15 17:49</TD><TD class=spelldata>Initial Entry</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Nope, No Nerf there.

Futhermore, I hardly see how your not casting the spell often is going to make a differance server-wide. There are more druids across all servers who very apt do not care ho wmany people know, as long as it helps them heal.

-Fenier

I think that Druids need lich and FD!

This is my typical spell line up.

1. Karanas Renewal (switch out for root if I'm CC)
2. Ancient Clorobon
3. Serpent Vines
4. HoR or Glacier Breath debuff
5. Dawnstrike or Ancient Glacier Frost (fire/cold nuke #1)
6. Solstice Strike or Tempest Wind (fire/cold nuke #2)
7. random buff: in groups normally group thorns or reptile, on raids normally steeloak
8. Blessing of Oak
9. Oaken Guard

I recently got my 68 DoD spell....and then watched it get nerfed....and you know what? I rarely use it. Why? Because I don't want peeps to know that Druids got a WONDERFULL new spell. I don't want to contribute in ANY way to the eventual nerfing of this spell's abilities...or the new line of MoB's that have some crappy little trick to either despell it or remove the benefits this spell gives.

A few of my EQ frineds know a of it and the LOVE it. FOr them I use it with the understanding to keep it the best kept secreet in EQ. And we use it knowing that soon...all too son...SOE wil nerf it to the point of uselessness.

So if you hardly ever use it and refuse to use it much, what difference should it make to you if it gets nerfed? Refusing to use something because it might get nerfed is just silly. Saying anyone who uses it is contributing to it getting nerfed is silly. You and your friends trying to keep this spell as your "super secret" when most of EQ probably already knows about this is silly. If it gets nerfed, it will get nerfed. How much each person uses it or how many people in EQ know about it won't matter much there. I'm sure there will be people protesting, but there are ALWAYS people who will protest. It doesn't matter what it is, someone...somewhere...will protest.