I was wondering, do you melee?

I can't see giving up my epic 2.0 for a melee weapon, I very seldomly ever melee.

If it comes down to the point where my Hammer of Hours may ensure a win, yes, I melee.

Not any more. My hammer of hours is gathering dust. If I can't nuke it to death before I'm dead or root/rot it efficiently I don't bother. I'm just getting lazy in my old age.

I will on 2 occations
1) Pharmin greys, I figure my DS is doing most the work and I can get a swing or 2 in before spell gems refresh.
2) If a shammy is casting Group Panther, with DD crits so does panther, and you add a bard to that....go go druid melee power. lol still this is not as much DPS as nukeing but fun on occation

I melee when I am doing long fights and just use DoTs and only nuke when epic click is up.

sure I melee,
If im OOM, with all clickys down, and exodus down, and im rooted,
I melee

Back awhile ago, before I retired, I would often step in and swing. I had clicky haste, haste items and a some plus attack mods here and there(oh how I desired that Vt mace of dark thought). I had a distinct playstyle as a battle druid. I would chuck on a dot(often a clicky), spend time meleeing with the meleers, throw in a nuke or 2, and do pretty fair sustained dps so, no one really minded.

Especially, in the older zones before Planes of Power, and the sit aggro. The mobs had lower hit points, did not hit for a ton of damage, things like snare had huge aggro, but, was a neccessary job requirement. Rather than chuck on snare, then sit, then get popped by a mob. I would just drop snare on it, and if it aggroed over onto me, tank never had to move around mob chasing as I would just take my bumps(I usually had more ac and hit points than the typical druids at the time as well).

It was a fun playstyle. Fun solo and in group. Summon cubby the fluffy bear and haste him up was fun as his bashes would help alot during this, charmed pets were fun to use this tactic as well, it was fairly fun to charm a brontoherium, glacial mastodon, velium hound, and take down Yeldema or something with em. Or substitute other zones for fun.

My reasoning was more, well I grew up with that playstyle, well into my forties, I continued it well into my sixties. Where as alot of other druids abandoned it for other methods. i can't remember all the math on it, but, rather than blow 1k worth of mana(back in the day you know was alot of mana to use) on a mob or so, I would go with 300 or so and still put out good dps, especially in the breeze/ clarity days, and be able to control my sustained dps well, back in the days when flowing thought or mana regen items were few and far between and Koadic and on, mana management was key. Pop and on helped with more flowing thought and mana regen so, and focus effects, it helped the playstyle alot more, but slowed down the melee soloing playstyle alot.

Equip my HoH if i'm tanking something. That's about it

When root/rotting and the mob is nearly dead and starts 'snared running' I step in and swing at it.....

And when clering trash on way to raid targets....

Simply to try and get my melee skills up!

I used to melee all the time and then they added DS's explosions to every other mob we fight so I have started being lazy about it. Now adays the only time I melee is when soloing (which is VERY rare now) and the mob is running snared, or when I group with my brother, we run a paladin shaman druid necro and bard, so he casts group panther and we all melee. On raids it rare when I melee as I'm usually the only healer in a group of casters.

I do it alot, though I still don't have a Hammer of Hours :( But I do have a Chaotic Strike proc aug in my epic. When we do a CoA run I melee on Hanver cos I just end up on aggro by overnuking from boredom. So melee and have a good old chinwag. Even trained hand to hand a bit on him hehe.

Ya really have to play melee to know just how much druid melee sucks - I don't care what proc you're sportin, it's weak. We couldn't kill a wet paper bag mob.

a_wet_paperbag_mob_01 :frocket:
(Long fight) DoTs, epic/nukes, panther, champ, procs, spam tank with Barkspur/Fernspur, etc etc. It's good enough for me :cool:

I actually melee quite a bit. When I am soloing, I will keep reptile skin and fernspur on myself. If I can melee it when soloing, I will. I know I play a druid, but I can't stand kiting. So, naturally, if I can't tank it, I will usually box an SK guildie of mine. Most things I solo, I can usually tank, so I don't bother to kite.

I actually melee quite a bit. When I am soloing, I will keep reptile skin and fernspur on myself. If I can melee it when soloing, I will. I know I play a druid, but I can't stand kiting. So, naturally, if I can't tank it, I will usually box an SK guildie of mine. Most things I solo, I can usually tank, so I don't bother to kite.

kiting yellow and red cons > killing 2 light blues an hour with a glowstick

There are some zones where I will tank even, yellow or red cons. I do this alot in Katta, killing snakes at the greenhouse. NBW makes this go alot faster, as does fernspur. Druids aren't completely helpless. There are things that we can tank, they do not have to be only blue and light blue cons.

Out of pure morbid curiousity I went to tank-solo a greenhouse snake. 65m later and a couple of close calls later it was dead after 10 minutes.

Think I'll keep my kiting thx.

My mana stayed up pretty well. Guess it depends on the spells you use and how often you use them to dps or heal.

To each their own

To each their own

I agree

i am retired now but used to melee a lot with the DoD manavampire mace .. especially when being MH =). I used to find the manavamp very useful for grouping. With that i could MH for ages in intense fights without going oom. (i am a nonraider and i could MH at 70's a DON nest run np nonstop with no necro and no bard in group).

Its a small aid .. but could make the difference between going oom after 30 mins and keeping up. I was casting nonstop all the time, heals, debuffs dots, nukes so no time to med anyway .. and mace was sucking some mana during the casting pauses with gems grayed.

quote"Out of pure morbid curiousity I went to tank-solo a greenhouse snake. 65m later and a couple of close calls later it was dead after 10 minutes.

Think I'll keep my kiting thx."

Ya pre pop it wasn't like that, for the most part(an elysian took allittle while to kill like that for an example, but, however a wyvern or othirmir was quite a bit easier). It was alot more effienct as things to enable that playstyle were allittle more well rounded, and scaled appropriately, like regens and damage shields, our heals also blew back then. Neat little tricks like fury of air(with the 4 second stun time before the change, I loved that spell), great way to mitigate damage for tanks and stop gaters and healers.

If I am tanking a caster mob, I pull out my voodoo wand, but if I am tanking a non caster mob, I stick with my epic. Pocket panther helps me out quite a bit too (Crystal of Daylight).

Pocket panther helps me out quite a bit too

kinky

kinky

Haha. For some reason, I kinda knew that was going to come from someone. It almost always does. lol

"what is that awful smell."

"Sex Panther, it is made from bits of real panther, so, you know it has to be good"

an elysian took allittle while to kill like that for an example

Pretty sure it was kiting/root rotting those buggers that put me off kiting for life. Spent weeks there non stop to get a full set of Elysian armour. Felt like I was the bees knees when I finally got it all though :) Didnt melee those though, if they caught me I usually splatted very fast, tanking them was not an option back then lol.

Man...tanking anything back than was not an option back than lol.

Well...maybe at like...level 1-10 or something, depending where you faught.

I tried elysians a few times, I liked to melee dot and solo down the big hitters in the day.... well for the times. Yeldema was fun. I wouldn't have recommended elysians regularly, what with the 200 hits and 20 k hitpoints(very absurd at the time and subsequent 1500 hit points unbuffed for the typical druid), and 400 hit point chloros and Nature Touch for 900 Alex. I have a few funny stories about another druids when a few elysians(especially when an elder was accidently pulled), got loose in the safe valley though, on one memorable occasion, rumblecrush made his way there, now that was hilarious. Othirmirs were doable effienctly.

Omg the elder Elysians >.< They were a bitch, I gated if I got one of them by accident lol.

If the mob doesn't hit for more than 1,000 a swing, have massive health, or hit ridiculously fast I will melee the mob. Meleeing usually changes up playing a druid because we get to do it soo rarely I try to do it whenever I can. Sometime when i get bored i go to EPs and kill the Mephits or BoT and kill the random namer or WoS namers. I just Skin of Reptile, Fernspur RkII, snare, DoT and mabye debuff depending on how hard it hits and it usually dies faster than it would kiting (DoT kiting that is). With the addition of Fernspur an instant cast 4k or 8k damage it speeds up meleeing a ton. I personally don't have HoH but i use the DoD 70.4 mace (same proc and 10 less delay) and it works just as well.

Ok, I think people are talking about two different types of "meleeing".

Some people are talking about attacking by swinging a weapon. That is what comes to my mind when someone talks about melee.
Some people are talking about tanking (taking incoming melee damage), while dealing damage through damage shields or dots/nukes.

There is a bit of overlap, but for the most part they're two separate concepts.

Sometimes, it goes hand and hand on the meleeing and tanking part. Like soloing by meleeing effectively. Back in the day, around level 49-53 ish, instead of quading wyverns, I would just melee them out sometimes. They had 3k hit points I think, hit for around 100 ish. Cast one Dot on one, the biggest one you had at the time, combine your damage shield, regen, wolf form to with the positive attack bonus, not to mention whatever nasty proc you might have had, and your meleeing and you have a fairly effective way to gain exprience effienctly on a short fight, while being mana effienct as well.

In grouping situtations, there are alot of interesting mechanics and toolsets, multiple procs, spell procs like panther, weapons, so it remains quite viable to take advantage of, at least in group play. Although, I haven't played in a year, I wouldn't be sure how the out of combat regeneration would effect the playstyle, nor how the mobs react by how hard they hit, their hitpoints, things like that, soloing effectively by meleeing may not be that viable, but, I know back in the day with allittle planning it was effective in and out of groups.

In groups being mana effienct while doing sustained Damage per second, was my forte. I wouldn't do the most damage I could do, the whole sit, nuke, nuke, nuke, sit again, was allittle boring to me. By controlling and managing my mana pool, if worse came to worse, I could switch between healing modes, add burst dps in case things were getting allittle hairy, it was just part of being the jack of all trades to me.

That's a good point about Panther, especially since shamans finally got a group version (so it doesn't take any extra effort on the shaman's part for us to get Panther).

if we were talking about tanking, i do that all the time, with fern + reptile + nbw and WF
while wacking with the glowstick w/ rune effect