I recently posted a new topic in the EQ boards in the Class Section about questions I thought Druids could use some answers to I pm'd Rashere a copy and got this reply.

1) How good should the Druids ability to heal be in relation to the other priest classes?
At one point a percentage was mentioned by a Dev, If I remember correctly it was 75%
Of a cleric in certain situations.

1B) Is this 75% of a clerics healing power still where the current Devs would like to see Druids healing capabilities and in what situations
should druids be able to reach this percentage? Groups? Raids? Both?

2)How good should druids damage dealing capabilities be in relation to other casters who deal damage through spells as a means of providing viable dps in groups and on raids be without factoring in situational only utility spells that more and more often for the most part cannot be used on raids and are only of limited use in groups? Damage shields for one example. Should the Druids ability to deal damage via spells be as good as that of a mage? 80% of a mages ability?
How much dps do the Devs think druids should be able to do in all situations via spells? burst? sustained? Raids? Groups?

3) Are Stances still on the table so to speak?

A long time ago on a board far far away,
Druid Stances were presented as an idea to balance the class.
Now, Much time has passed and stances have not been implemented or in most cases mentioned.

Much Debate for and against stances has taken place.
I feel no need to rehash any of those debates.
I'm sure someone else has suggested this before but it seems to me that implementing stances could easily be done.
2 self buffs, that overwite and or block each other.
1 that when cast provides an additional % to all healing spells and another that does the same for our damage spells.
Spell: Tunare's/Karana's Natural Aid RK1:
Increase all healing spells that are appropriate yadda yadda by 10% 11, 12 whatever the % the devs feel is needed to bring druid healing in line with other Priest classes.
RK2: a small percentage increase
RK3: another small percentage increase.
Spell: Tunare's/Karana's Natural Fury RK1:
Increase all damaging spells that are appropriate by 10% 11 12, whatever the devs feel is needed to balance druid dps inline with other dmg casters.
RK2: a small percentage increase
RK3: another small percentage increase

Of course this is easily said but may or may not be feasible depending on what the code will allow and may or may not be worth the effort as their are many other ways druids healing, dps and utility could be balanced.

Without answers to these questions at the minimum, it is my opinion that the Druid Community as a whole cannot provide strong evidence of any fashion to enable further communication and work towards any logical changes.
If we as a class do not know the answers to these questions it is difficult, some might say impossible to provide meaningful feedback to the Dev team via parses, research, discussion, feedback or any other means, if we as a class do not know where we 'should' be in relation to other classes in the game itself.

Barton Briarbritches
FV <stoic tenacity="">
Rashere's Reply

From: Rashere (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/user/profile.m?user_id=30475) To: Barton-KB (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/user/profile.m?user_id=152924) Date: 05/23/2007 11:22:41 Subject: Rehttp://forums.station.sony.com/eq/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gifruid Questions we need answered post in class forums Not too hard...
We've always shot for druids to be about 75% of the healing ability of a similar level/gear cleric and about 80% of the efficiency.
On the DPS side, a druid should be similar to a mage without including the mage's pet in the equation. We had to adjust things recently to get it closer to that target, which is why the new spells were introduced.
Stances are still on the table, but have always been a low priority, long-term goal. I don't want to implement them as simple buffs since buff slots are a commodity.
Rashere

So with that in mind I look forward to doing some testing to see if we come close to these 'ballpark' figures.

Barton Briarbritches
FV<stoic tenacity=""></stoic></stoic>

I'll post the same here that i did over there. Not in the mood to do exact number crunching atm but will look at it later this evening if someone doesn't beat me to it.

Our nuke spells are very "similar" to a mage, if you want to compare base stats of the two lines of nukes we both get. The dps difference there comes from the fact that their fire nuke (slightly better dmg than EB) has the nuke enhancing recourse and where situations allow, their Bolt spell blows us out of the water. Their magic line, while costing more mana, also does more base damage.
I'm assuming our DoTs are the comparable trade-off for them having a 3sec base nuke (admittedly, lower damage) and two lines of Rain AEs + beam nuke.

Not to mention that foci degredation further sets us apart, as their magic line and bolt spells are both early level spell in regards to level increases (whereas ours are 74/75, there's are 71/72). Always a bit controversial to bring foci into any spell discussion, but if you're mid-level (which seems to be DP/DK these days) then mage and druid foci on a comparative scale brings the mage out in front there also.


The "75% of the healing ability of a similar level/gear cleric and about 80% of the efficiency." Just isn't accurate. UNLESS they're basing our healing "ability" solely on Sacred Light vs Pure Life. Druids don't even come close to 75% of a clerics healing ability and as you can see, we're still behind mages when it comes to dps. So if those are the factors we're being "balanced" around then i'd say it's quite a bit off atm.

Would be nice to get some aa dps "discs" like heart of flames etc.