This isn't going to be news - it was when I started working on this Friday... :)

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I wanted to make a brief comment about caster balance. Unfortunately for those that are anxious to see the changes completed, we’re going to insist that this be a slow process. Introducing a lot of balance changes at one time isn’t a good idea. We want to keep the number of changes at one time small so that we can judge their effect without too much overlap.

So while everyone, including us, wants to see the “end” of this caster balancing thing, we don’t want to rush to get there without careful evaluation of each change. Please be patient with the process.

We certainly haven’t forgotten to look at the priest classes. With the next patch to Test we will be removing the 10% penalty to healing from non-clerics. Clerics will still get the 5% bonus at all levels, and will still get their heal spells many levels earlier that the other priests.

We want to see how this plays out on Test, obviously, before we consider moving it Live, and before we consider other changes to the priest classes. This is the Test server, so you should neither expect the change to go Live, nor assume that it won’t. Right now it’s there to be tested, and whether it does or does not go Live will be dependent on what we discover on Test.

We are also looking at some changes to help to make clerics be a little more well-rounded, along with addressing some concerns put forth by druids and shamans. Those ideas are still in the development stage, and we’ll talk more about them when we get done looking at the healing changes.

Thanks for your patience with us on this.

Alan

along with addressing some concerns put forth by druids and shamans

Acknowledgement! Woo!

Thanks for the update!

Believe it or not but an update as simple as this can go a long way in easing some of our concerns with caster balancing(as well as other class issues). After so long, some of us wonder if its ever coming, and re-assurances like this only help ease our frustrations.


ore communication is good :) I just wish you guys would do more of this...

Thanks for the update, Alan. The removal of the 10% penalty on Test was an encouraging step, albeit a small one.

I'm still waiting on the EFP thing though...

(OT)

Sobe, Broom's title looks really wierd. Might want to try and fix it.

Yay~

Hmm, think my next character will be a cleric. Best buffs, best heals, nukes, stuns, ability to rez and soon to be well rounded. Sounds great!

Hmm, think my next character will be a druid. Second best nukes, second best ports, tracking, sow, invis, levitate, aoe spells, debuffs, dot's, ability to forage and soon to be better healers. Sounds great!

Sobe or someone, feel free to delete this post, just getting frustrated.

There's an update.

The removal of the 10% healing penalty is a good change, and I hope it goes live.

Heh this got stickied quick!

Thanks for the update. I won't try to understand everything that goes into changes, and what it takes to make it happen. We are just jellous of the quick changes melee/hybrids got so long ago.


10% healing is a great idea, and won't overpower us in anyway. We are no way close to replaceing clerics on raids, and raids are were Druids feel we need the strongest look.

Actually Lylliae99, I'm serious. I've been toying with the idea of making a cleric now that my other 2 characters are lvl 60. Now that they're going to get some well roundedness, it makes the idea more appealing. Who wouldn't want to play a class that's the best at something so important plus not be pigeonholed into that arena? That's what drew people to druids and necros to begin with oh so long ago.

So, like I said.. it sounds great! And yeah, you're probably just to frustrated at this point to be able to see anything but negative in posts about clerics on these boards.

I'm just glad they're hearing us... listening is another issue, but keep your chin up folks.

Thanks for the update. The removal of the penalty is a very good (although small) step in the right direction. I think just popping in here and saying we are still being thought about and maybe a hint every once in a while on what you are thinking of doing (with the standard disclaimer of course) would go a long way in quelling some of the flames here.

Thanks for the update.

Talking to us and sharing this info goes a long way in the PR department, thank you.

I also agree that it was a huge step in getting community communication (say that three times fast) going again.

Yeah, I stickied almost right after it was posted...I wanted to make sure it did not get lost in all the flames =)

/shrug

Thank you for posting.

But please realize that most Druids really do think that 10% penalty was bogus in the first place and removing it is equal to Lessor Succor at 18.

Kinda a breadstick before the meal. Nice breadstick, sure. But we still would like the entree.

We don't need any dessert, just some meat and potatoes.

A good start - keep it up :)

I'll take FyyrLuStorm's dessert. ;)

I think the removal of healing penalty is great, but people who are against it, you gotta remember, druid's don't get superior heal until level 51 which is a long wait from 29... And a lot of times, in groups I find myself the main healer if we don't have a cleric, which is the usual situation I find myself in. Think about it this way. Would you rather have a druid healer, or nothing? Now, if you had a druid healer would you want him/her to have crappy heals? I think not. And if so, then that's just fine but I HATE having to be main healer for a group. Now this new healing penalty removal is a great thing, indeed, but there are greater concerns to me other then healing. Okay, I am just rambling on now so I'll shut up.

Triz
52 Wanderer
Prexus

Thanks for the update. The 10% is obviously a test to see how slightly larger heals effect clerics.

I play a 60 druid and 59 cleric and I really have to say that this sounds great. Both classes need work and making clerics significantly more well rounded while starting to bring druidic healing ability up to par with at least shamans would be an excellent way to do it.

One neat approach that would be rather simple and kill several birds with one stone would be to start by giving all 55+ characters the ability to med while standing (to help bring casters in general into closer balance with melees and to just make teh game more fun, less tedium!). Then raise cleric and druid melee skills to equal or just below shamans. (And possibly raise all 3 priests melee an additional notch.) Give clerics a buff to proc a *big* anti undead dd, druids a smaller fire-based proc, and shamans a comparable cold based one. Remove the 10 % heal penalty and reduce the duration on nature's recovery to 24 seconds(900 pt 24 sec Heal over time). It brings priests closer in balance with melee's in a FUN way and it brings druid healing up to a reasonable level.

Just wanted to say gratz. The removal of that 10% penalty was long overdue.

The removal of the 10% healing penalty is a good change, and I hope it goes live.

I agree, but I fail to see it as significant. Maybe I just don't crunch enough numbers, but I see this like CPU number arguments. With CPU's, people talk about 5% faster machines, but who's perceptions are fine tuned enough to notice a 5% difference?

Same thing here. While technically it is a performance increase, I doubt many of us will be "oooing" or "ahhing" over a 10% increase unless we look at the numbers for HPs healed over many hours.

Been horsing around with some D&D games lately....

Two staples of cleric spellbooks I am not seeing in this game...

Cause wounds...direct dmg spells that are the mirror image of heal spells (ok no that WON'T work for CH ... CW...would be a bit troubling).

Sleep...basic crowd control. Pretty sure clerics get that in most games.

I do think the crowd control ability is sufficiently spread atm (either slow with shaman, or mezz with necro/bard/chanter, or root park).

But there should be room for a cause wounds line...

Loegan

HG3 +10%
HA3 +10%
IH3 +10%? (I dont have hard numbers)
P3 +7.5% (its a 5.5% reduction is base cost - with SCM3 and spec200 that translates to a 7.5% increase in hp/mana)
Removal of penalty +11%

So, 48.5% increase (without taking any cumulative effects into consideration. Meanwhile CH didnt get one bit better (nor do I particularly think it should have). But, please dont ignore that 5 "unnoticable" upgrades taken together can and will yield a very noticeable upgrade.

Sure, it takes some AA skills - and sure, it takes some focus items - so its not as good as if it was for free. But, its still there to be gotten. Clerics cannot get anything to improve their CH.

Oakentree

Cause Wound.

DL is 955 for 350 mana
Judgement is 925 for 325 mana

Cause wounds would probably be less of an upgrade than you seem to think. Maybe if it was made unresistable - but then all cleric undead DDs are made obsolete which doesnt make much sense either.

Either way it nice to hear something. As an employer of many people I alway find it easier if someone tells me "Hey I could not get to whatever cause I was working this other problem over here and I will get to it next."

Since we "Employ" Verant and SOE (indirectly) that feedback to me is highly appreciated. Am I completely satisfied? No, but I am willing to hold off "firing" Verant/SOE (quiting the game) because I hear they are at least doing something for their "paycheck" (the 12.95 a month we send em).

Ellzii

Cool. Thanx for the update, Absor. :)

Mikar,

why must a Druid have max AA to heal effectively when no other class is forced into AA's to be fixed. Our current heals scale nowhere near Torpor nor CH in comparison, not to mention you act as though Complete Heal is the only heal you Clerics have. You may use CH the most, but thats far from the only heal you have so dont try and BS everybody that you cant improve your heals through AA. I swear Druids are the only class where haters think they should have to do AA exp in order to get a balancing heal. AA exp should be a bonus, not something you NEED to have to heal effectively.

Why do you worry about Druids so much when a Shaman can easily replace you by themself? They take away your grouping ability way more than Druids ever did by themself. So go over to the Shaman board and tell them how they should be nerfed, instead of commenting on a Druid thread how we should have to have max AA to heal as well as the 2 other priest classes. Ya know, the 2 other priest classes that dont have to max any AA exp to get much more mana efficient heals than Druids ever had :P For some reason i see a double standard here, since you seem to be picking on the other priest class thats least likely to replace a Cleric.

Natures Touch just doesnt come anywhere near Complete Heal, Celestial Elixir, nor Torpor. AA for other classes seem to be about making them God's, and we're stuck with using AA just to be up to par? No thank you :P

I would like to suggest that VI put in quests to attain 58+ spells as well as have them drop. (Admittedly I am a shaman and am just hitting a brick wall when it comes to finding any of my 59+ spells.)

I also think it might not be a bad idea to give druids that gate-preventing ability they thought about giving to wizards. At this point I'd go so far as to say wizards don't need it to be balanced.

Broomhilda

I am sorry if you think I am picking on druids - by pointing out facts.

Lets take it from the top. I didnt say druids should need max AA to be balanced. I said you had the option - which is better than nothing. This also means that if you are balanced without - you would have the option to become above balanced with it.

Shamans also need MC3 + CannV btw - before they really become gods. And Torpor which drops very rarely. Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not - but its still fact. Clerics need HG3 - to just be able to take some of our class skills - and HG3 doesnt do anything for CH - so its of less value for us. Fair? Fact!

Also, which cleric AA skills make clerics gods? I wish I knew - because I cannot see it.

Now - clerics have other heals then CH - and sometimes have to use them. YES - finally a druid that admits that, thank you. Then why do the *entire* druid drive on getting a better heal insist on comparing *only* to CH? By your own words thats not all clerics use - so why doesnt the comparison include that fact in the slightest?

Anyway - my point was that druids have gotten (are getting) recent *options* to improve by 50% - so if the comparison is strictly vs CH (as has been the case sofar) - then this cannot be ignored.

Finally - I am not on a mission worrying about druids - nor shaman - I am trying to provide hard cold facts - just like I did with a post on this board in the "library" claimed that SCM and MP was hit by a cap. And just like I did when I started the thread on Graffes that is now the reason everyone and his dog knows that SCM rocks.

I seek facts - something not everyone seems to appreciate.

It's always neat hearing people talk about how great and powerful Torpor is. Of course, whenever they talk about it, they conveniently forget to mention how rare it is, and how the majority of Shaman don't have it. Not to mention the drawbacks of it, being usable only on a groupmember, snaring them, and slowing their attack speed while it's in effect. Don't believe me? Do a price check on it... I'd guess an avg of 50k.

Undoing the 10% healing penalty will help a lot, especially for the <56 crowd, since Druids & Shaman are fairly comparable as healers through all those levels.

I don't want to seem too ingrateful for the caster balancing thus far, but what is with the "focus" items? Example: Robe of the Oracle has an effect on that only applies to spells below 20th level...yet the mob it drops from would wipe a 20th level (and probably a group of 20th lvls.)

It would not unbalance the game if casters of all levels could use the robe's effect. The focus items in their current state only help twinks, thus the focus items pull the game even further away from the way it was intended to be played.

-just my opinion

You know its kinda funny how your so quick to point out how rare Torpor is when most Druids dont even have the ROTG breastplate, and you make some long exxagerated post of how ROTG is the greatest heal spell in the game. What you call as 'facts' you skew against Druids, because ROTG comes nowhere close to effectiveness as you claim. Its like those same people who love to parse our damage shields and act as tho they are equivalent to rogue damage, but in practical use is a step above summoning our bear pet which is a joke at the high lvls.

I never directly stated AA makes Clerics Gods, but it sure does a few other classes. Have you ever taken a look at Druid AA abilities? Yeah, we get screwed in that dept as well so dont come whining to us about Cleric AA problems :P We shouldnt have to be lvl 61 to heal properly.

CH isnt the only heal i've seen Clerics use, but its definitely the most used by far. Its silly you guys get it at lvl 39, it should be a lvl 60 spell. They screwed up by putting it in so low, and making your other heals somewhat obsolete from that point on. Although your HoT's like CE have their place in terms of aggro, and where complete healing isnt a necessity. Nice to have that luxury with some very mana efficient heals, when Druids are the only priest class forced into sucking all their mana dry because of very mana inefficient heals.

Dont gimme this crap about all the drawbacks of Torpor or how rare it is. I know Shamans that arent even in Uber guilds that have it, and i've have had plenty of opportunities to see it firsthand. The positives far outweigh the negatives. There was a discussion here awhile back of people trying to downplay Torpor, it was a funny thread. How many exp groups have 2 separate groups, and even then how hard is it to place the Shaman in the group where hes needed? Why is a 100% speed decrease so bad? Where does the tank need to go? Nobody runs outa dungeons anymore, and the few occasions that does happen the tank runs last anyways. If the choices are going oom with awful heal ratios, or using a HoT with a heal efficiency only second to CH that may slow the recipient as the only major drawback, i'll take the HoT everytime. Yeah, not practical for one scenario against one big boss mob that accounts for less than 1% of your EQ time.

The bottomline here is Clerics think a group shouldnt be able to function w/o them. You need to get over yourselves, and realize healing is an integral part of the game that much more than 1 class should be able to do effectively. You currently hold a monopoly in a dept that hurts the game more than it helps. In hurt, i mean ability to form groups instead of having to sit at zoneline waiting for a Cleric or Shaman to come.

Clerics cannot get anything to improve their CH.

Technically, every time a tank gets better equipment (read: more hitpoints) CH gets upgraded.

Whoever thought up the focus items had a bit too much to drink *smiles*

First off:

There should be focus percentages IE

Focus 1 = 5%
Focus 2 = 10%
Focus 3 = 15%

And items shoudl work on ALL spells.

As was mentioned MANY times. It just seems silly that Upon gaining a new spell level my focus item no longer works.

If I have a Focus 1 item it shoud work on all spells but just at the 5% level.

The way they implemented it makes no sense whatsoever.

"Technically, every time a tank gets better equipment (read: more hitpoints) CH gets upgraded"


Great point! So in reality, CH gets upgraded more than any other heal spell period :P

I'd love to see Mikar try and argue this.

I agree with Zoffo about Focus items. The idea was great but was implemented poorly. They need to make higher focus items scale up by the percentage they improve, not the spells they affect.

The rarity and gimpiness of torpor as anything but a self heal isn't bull, it's fact. Don't be silly. I've played for 3 years now and seen torpor drop only once. I'll likely never be able to get my hands on it without selling my fungi.

There is a major disconnect here, druids point to shammies being gods with aaxp abilities but forget that they need very good to uber equipment to even survive cann 5, much less use it effectively. Druids seem to be able to perform effectively regardless of their equipment. (Of course having good equipment helps a ton on both.)

I'm not saying druids don't need balancing, hell I think they should get a spell that heals 50% of their target's total hitpoint pool, that would be a great heal at lvl 60 and put them squarely in the "wanted on raids category."
All I'm saying is don't "balance" all shamen on what the elite few can do, because it would only really hurt us regular folk.

Welcome to the world of elitist class balancing where Verant balances the game based on the top 1% of the players and we as players often try and do the same when we use items that 99% of the classes do not have and assume we all have them *smiles*

Well, here is the way I see it. I can take my necro_level60 to farm all sorts of uber melee gear that I can drop on my ranger_level1. The ranger immediately has the opportunity to own the game. This can be done with any melee class. So how is it you tank a caster with like capabilities? You can not. And since VI obviously doesn't have a problem with melee twinkage (they say they don't support it, but Arafat says he doesn't support car bombs too...words < actions) what would be so wrong with a level 1 caster wearing a level 30 robe that provided some "focus" benefit all the way to 30th level and beyond? Why doesn't a Centi Longsword or Wurm quite doing uber damage past 20th or 30th level?

In my opinion, they need a player committee to help guide the caster balancing...what has happened so far is nice...but it is not balancing.

The next time you wonder how unbalanced it is, give a 20th level shadowknight an Argent Protector and stand him next to a 20th level (any caster...any two casters similarly twinked) and let me know what you find out.

-just my opinion

I agree, a big part of our imbalance seems to have to do with whats available to the uber players as opposed to the average ones. Many of the uber Druids here seem content, no wonder when we hear them talking about not having to sit down to med and staying close to FM quading because of their FT15. Or how they take their NToV groups into HS and say how easy it is. The sad reality is most Druids dont have the luxury of having all this FT stuff, Mask of the Stalker/Hunter(that helps mana regen), Moonfire, etc. that Verant puts in to balance the class. What good is it when only the elite are balanced? And Verant wonders why the rest of the 'average' druids are complaining? Our spells are our bread and butter, they should be given to us in the manner that melee's get abilities just for lvling. At 60, we dont get anything but the benefit of being a lvl 60, we still have to search tirelessly for our spells that only the uber guilds pharm and pass out to friends.

Guess thats Verants idea of balance. When the uber are happy, and the rest of the players are screwed :P

Aye, that is where is see the biggest problem lies, we are all continually balanced based on the abilities of the top 1% of the population.

Looking at any of the priest classes from the perspective of the "average" player will give VI a much better idea of what needs to be done to balance them. As I said, balancing based on the top 1% of the players of any class only serves to hurt the other 99%.

There's no question that druids, shammies, and clerics need tweaking, but if they only look at the life of a lvl 60 with 20+ aaxp and ft 15... well then it's no wonder they'll see little that needs changing.

One big example of this, now that I think about it, is the focus items.

Those benefitted the uber geared people the most as most lvl 3 effects are off some very high end equipment.

any of the rest of us are stuck with lvl 2 effect items... and just how many times do we cast useful spells below lvl 44 when we're 55+?

I think the healing penalty removal will be a nice first step, but yes, due to the huge cockroach-like population of druids, there is a huge difference in the equip and spells available to the druid at 60. That in of itself is the problem. VI isnt scaling the drop rates for spells to go with a certain class population, and I dont thing they should. Yes, spells are rare, alot of the 55+ spells are hard as hell to find let alone lev 60 spells such as moonfire, but this is the case for almost every class, not just druids (ie funeral pyre, sunstrike). I actually was able to buy a MQ for a thurg BP before I was able to buy regrowth of the grove, and I still dont have that, or the pet spell :p . We chose to play druids, as a hell of alot of people have, therefore there is a huge demand for high end druid equip/spells cause of a fixed supply, and the ease at which even a very modestly equipped druid can get to 60.
Look on the brightside, druids are GREATmoney makers. every piece of equip on my druid ive paid for myself (cept talisman and faydedar for epic---i did pickup groups for other mobs). Druids can rival the power of many other classes with what would be considered junk gear by todays standards.
oh well, just my thoughts

Finally - I am not on a mission worrying about druids - nor shaman - I am trying to provide hard cold facts - just like I did with a post on this board in the "library" claimed that SCM and MP was hit by a cap. And just like I did when I started the thread on Graffes that is now the reason everyone and his dog knows that SCM rocks.

I seek facts - something not everyone seems to appreciate.


*nods* I don't think that the druid community has a mission against the cleric community, we are all a little touchy over this issue and we are forced onto the defensive for many reasons (e.g. extravagent wish list post for MB and CH) and the "Us" (druids) vs "Them" (Verant druid-haters) often degenerates into "Us" (druids) vs "Them" (clerics, other classes) or worse still "Us" (druids) vs "Them" (druids)

I personally would be happy to see the cleric changes that Absor hinted at (rounding out the cleric class).

As a distinct desire that does not preclude cleric changes, I would like quid pro quo for druid healing around the same time.

p.s. glad to see some "human contact" from Verant to acknowledge their customer bases worries and desires. It makes me optimistic again (i.e. I am a masochist and will happily become excited just so I can be thoroughly disappointed later again and again)

p.p.s. (+10% > +0%) and is therefore a change for the better. Yelling at the rain is bad enough, but complaining when it stops that it isn't sunny enough is just pernicious to one's soul.

Are Mod's gonna kill the flames here? Delete a few posts, please. We always complain that VI never communicates with us. They make this effort (thank you Absor) and we let a bunch of people sit around and b*tch about caster balancing. Maybe we can ban some of the people that are hounding this thread from a link from the Shaman's Crucible, too? It's not too hard to pick them out.

In any case, please exert your mod powers. That's why you have 'em folks.

I wouldn't be too quick to give clerics more better abilities. They are, after all, a specialized class. Rounding them out, so to speak, may well make them overpowered in relation.

In a related question, when are higher level items going to receive focus effects? In other words, Luclin items and the mostly ignored NToV items.

starting to bring druidic healing ability up to par with at least shamans would be an excellent way to do it.

Druids get Superior Heal at 55 and Chloroblast at 59? Or is it that a druid's Chloroblast and Superior Heal heal for significantly less than a shaman's. I don't see the major difference here.

Shamans don't heal better than druids. They have slow, which means that they don't have to heal as often. Saying that this debuff makes shamans better healers than druids is like saying that evac spells make druids better rezzers than shamans. I can prevent damage and you can prevent needless death, but should a mob resist the slow and should the druid be interrupted in his evac casting, both of us fall back on the same healing spells.

The exception is the healing spells that each of our classes get at level 60. Torpor and Nature's Touch. Torpor is 1200 HP over 24 seconds, Nature's Touch is 900~ HP in a direct heal. Torpor slows, snares and is group only. Nature's Touch isn't. Torpor is 200 mana, Nature's Touch is quite a bit more. Both spells have their downsides. They have their useful niches. Neither is the answer to whatever healing problems you may believe your class has.

Xican said: Are Mod's gonna kill the flames here? Delete a few posts, please. We always complain that VI never communicates with us. They make this effort (thank you Absor) and we let a bunch of people sit around and b*tch about caster balancing.

I've skimmed over the posts in this thread - can't really say any are really "flames" (so far anyhow). Absor's got a thick hide, I'm sure nothing that's been said is anything he hasn't already heard. He used to help moderate the official boards, after all :P

Bahamiron the fact is that a shaman can more effectively be the only healer for a group than a druid can. No, it's not because of their heals, it's because of cann and slow but there it is anyway.

As a Druid I can not effectively be a rezzer for any group therefore your analogy sucks large rocks through a thin straw.

Bahimirion, your deliberately downplaying a Shamans abilities. Most of us, even clerics know their practically Gods in exp groups. So try another board where your talking to newbies.

So when a Shaman fails slow, he simply tries again, and maybe casts one torpor at the end of a few fights to get the mt back up. Trust me, a Shaman isnt just giving up after he fails slow, since slow is the main reason why he barely has to heal in the first place.

A druid is stuck with his 400 mana for 900s heal. Not to mention hes spamming it.

Torpors drawbacks come nowhere close to the benefit of the heal. You might fool somebody thats never seen Torpor on a regular basis into believing that, but i've seen it often enough where i know whats factually true.

Torpor is 300hps/tick for 4 ticks costing 200 mana. Only major drawback is the slowing of the tank, but even then it makes no difference whatsoever in exp groups because aggro isnt nearly as important, not to mention there is usually other damage dealers that are still racking up the damage on the mob.

Heh, dont think i need to get into canni, melee haste, regens, etc.

The analogy works fine, because slows aren't heals, just as evacs aren't rezzes. Both, however, work as a way of preventing the need for the other.

If you want slows, just ask Verant. I'm sure you can get Slow Plant or something.

I'm not sure if I like it... why? I don't think it solves the problems... and I'm afraid that it's just a bone they are throwing to us to keep us quiet (and never expecting to add more).

1) It will help healing pre50... But other then specific levels, we don't need any healing help (up to the 40s I would say). We can be a good healer in a group... not as good as a cleric, but we can do it when needed.

2) It will not help when we need it. is the 10% going to make it so a level 55 druid can effectively heal a tank in a group? I don't think it will. Too many hitpoints.

I really want the caster rebalancing to go something like this

1) define the roll of a caster.
2) make sure they can handle that roll throught the life of the character... in one way or another.

thats it

I define our roll as a Healer when there isn't a caster... and a Nuker when we have extra mana... and a buffer/debuffer for few items (snare, sow, DS, fire resistence).... And an evacer (when the shtf)

I think we do a decent job of it up till 40s... but then we loose the healer job and become a 'backup healer' where we heal the healer or the enchanter. We can nuke pretty well and still do the others to a point.

but I also think we can't do it all (never could really). If you are the only healer in the group... you will probably only be snaring for buff... and you wouldn't even think of nuking once. If you are the only nuker, you might not DS... ie, you are never expected to do them all at once... depending on the group.

So then, after they define what they want us to be... they make it so we can do it.

Can we heal a tank in a group at all levels? (not can we do it as efficiently... but can it be done). If not...add spells so it can be. Better HoT? Scalled down version of CH? A damage shield that reduces damage to the point where our current heals will do. Or how about a HS (heal shield) so that for every time you take a hit, you heal some.... (ie, reduce 15hp damage every swing) or something. IE, make it so in a normal group invorment you can still be the only one keeping a tank alive. (or how about a spell that evens out the agro of multiple tanks... so you hot spells work better. Maybe an illusion to make them all look the same or whatever)... whatever the spells they create to do this, the effect should be the same... you can heal... not as good... but you can to the main tank.

As for nuking. Can we be the only caster in a group and take down mobs like we used to... IE, if you took someone in their 30s in a group where the druid was the primary nuker... are they as good as they used to be? I would probably guess yes.. or close.

As for the raid problems. The trouble is there aren't any 20lvl raids (really). All classes have their raid jobs... We really don't.. Since a raid has all other classes... there are times that there isn't a reason for us to be there at all. Raid specific spells would probably do it... or stacking some raid spells of other classes... but both might effect PvE normal groups... the trouble... Maybe make up a new plan for us. Like field healer... a cleric can cast a special version of CH on us... we get a buff that allows us to cast CH on someone else... so we run into battle and cure... and get the !@# out of there... either at a higher mana (both casters use mana) and we take all or most of the agro... or that we both take equal agro.

As for removing all our abilities and giving it away... you must (Verant) realize that many of us started druids just because we didn't want to take a boat... or we wanted sow... to get us somewhere quick. When started a druid because he could get to where the fighting was good much faster then anyone else... others are more efficient (necro iksar is amazing soloer) but they have to waste time getting to a place to solo that evens things out a bit... With innate run and the portals opening up, you have removed one of the main reasons to start a druid (for me anyway)... it would be nice if you added something other feature.

I'm not sure if I like it... why? I don't think it solves the problems... and I'm afraid that it's just a bone they are throwing to us to keep us quiet (and never expecting to add more).

1) It will help healing pre50... But other then specific levels, we don't need any healing help (up to the 40s I would say). We can be a good healer in a group... not as good as a cleric, but we can do it when needed.

2) It will not help when we need it. is the 10% going to make it so a level 55 druid can effectively heal a tank in a group? I don't think it will. Too many hitpoints.

I really want the caster rebalancing to go something like this

1) define the roll of a caster.
2) make sure they can handle that roll throught the life of the character... in one way or another.

thats it

I define our roll as a Healer when there isn't a caster... and a Nuker when we have extra mana... and a buffer/debuffer for few items (snare, sow, DS, fire resistence).... And an evacer (when the shtf)

I think we do a decent job of it up till 40s... but then we loose the healer job and become a 'backup healer' where we heal the healer or the enchanter. We can nuke pretty well and still do the others to a point.

but I also think we can't do it all (never could really). If you are the only healer in the group... you will probably only be snaring for buff... and you wouldn't even think of nuking once. If you are the only nuker, you might not DS... ie, you are never expected to do them all at once... depending on the group.

So then, after they define what they want us to be... they make it so we can do it.

Can we heal a tank in a group at all levels? (not can we do it as efficiently... but can it be done). If not...add spells so it can be. Better HoT? Scalled down version of CH? A damage shield that reduces damage to the point where our current heals will do. Or how about a HS (heal shield) so that for every time you take a hit, you heal some.... (ie, reduce 15hp damage every swing) or something. IE, make it so in a normal group invorment you can still be the only one keeping a tank alive. (or how about a spell that evens out the agro of multiple tanks... so you hot spells work better. Maybe an illusion to make them all look the same or whatever)... whatever the spells they create to do this, the effect should be the same... you can heal... not as good... but you can to the main tank.

As for nuking. Can we be the only caster in a group and take down mobs like we used to... IE, if you took someone in their 30s in a group where the druid was the primary nuker... are they as good as they used to be? I would probably guess yes.. or close.

As for the raid problems. The trouble is there aren't any 20lvl raids (really). All classes have their raid jobs... We really don't.. Since a raid has all other classes... there are times that there isn't a reason for us to be there at all. Raid specific spells would probably do it... or stacking some raid spells of other classes... but both might effect PvE normal groups... the trouble... Maybe make up a new plan for us. Like field healer... a cleric can cast a special version of CH on us... we get a buff that allows us to cast CH on someone else... so we run into battle and cure... and get the !@# out of there... either at a higher mana (both casters use mana) and we take all or most of the agro... or that we both take equal agro.

As for removing all our abilities and giving it away... you must (Verant) realize that many of us started druids just because we didn't want to take a boat... or we wanted sow... to get us somewhere quick. When started a druid because he could get to where the fighting was good much faster then anyone else... others are more efficient (necro iksar is amazing soloer) but they have to waste time getting to a place to solo that evens things out a bit... With innate run and the portals opening up, you have removed one of the main reasons to start a druid (for me anyway)... it would be nice if you added something other feature.

"The analogy works fine, because slows aren't heals, just as evacs aren't rezzes. Both, however, work as a way of preventing the need for the other.

If you want slows, just ask Verant. I'm sure you can get Slow Plant or something"


LOL, if you cant see the difference between what slow brings to the table as opposed to evacs in relation to healing, you must be a troll. Anyways, your last comment says your a troll.

btw, i'd be happy with a 30-40% slow at lvl 60 ;)

> We are also looking at some changes to help to make clerics be a little more well-rounded

I like that.. I never realized how unbalanced clerics are...

Heh, its funny how some local posters really want to make it them vs us.

Yes, CH is upgraded every time your tank gets better. I never once denied that. Thats indeed part of the problem. You also need to consider though - then when tanks get better defensive skills (more ac, CA, CS, innate regen) the need for a healer in generel lowers - and its only when the need for a healer is large that a cleric is needed - so many making tanks better isnt solely an advantage for clerics - but in many cases a disadvange for clerics but an advantage for druids as tanks can now "manage" with a druid healer because they intrinsicly lowered damage intake.

If you bothered reading the posts I have made you would notice that one of my suggestions is a 66% heal for druids. Yes, I, a cleric, actually made a suggestion for a druid heal thats better than what you have atm.

As in - heals 66% * (Max_HP - Current_HP).

This has the advantage that it scales as tanks get more hp. It also forces the druid to heal as late as possible in order to get as good a ratio as possible (so we dont need to argue at what level of hp CH lands either. Its plain old just 66% as mana efficient as CH if we make it 10 sec casting and 400 mana too.

Or if we take the usual cleric bonus of 5% into account - we could make it a 63.5% heal - but thats splitting hairs.

I know - CH isnt coded as a complete heal but rather as a 10k heal - but thats conceptually not important for this discussion.

I already suggested this once - but not many seemed to think that was the answer (tm) to druid healing.

So, I wonder why I am met with such hostility - do you really prefer no dialogue at all with non-druids?

If you want to see something druidly along the lines of slow, and get anywhere near the power of a shaman vs slowable mobs, change thorns to mitigate some of a mob's damage in addition to turning some of that damage against the mob.

frog attempts to slash for 100 vs a warrior with 25pt thorns
25pts of damage is mitigated, and the frog actually slashes for 75
25pts of damage is given to the frog

If you want to see something clericly along the lines of slow, and get anywhere near the power of a shaman vs slowable mobs, change Mark of Retribution to mitigate some of the a mob's damage in addition to turning some of that damage against the mob.

frog with a 15pt Mark of Retribution attempts to slash for 100
15 pts of damage it mitigated, and the frog actually slashes for 85
15 pts of damage is given to the frog

Shamans are gods in exp groups.

Actually Pogey i suggested awhile ago that they should allow our DS's to stun. That would mitigate damage much in the same manner slow does, altho not to the same degree.

Then again, it might make stunning way too easy.

That is an interesting idea, but I don't think it would really improve matters for druids.

Shaman slow is so powerful because once it lands it reliably disables 73% (or whatever) of all a mobs damage, and makes it grossly easy to continue to land spells. Heals, dots, nukes, whatever. Shamans don't have to snare kite or root kite because they can just stand there and cast.

Random stuns would be a very unreliable way to mitigate damage. Is your tank about to get hit a ton or not? A few unlucky rounds of melee and you're back to square one, trying to keep up with high damage output using a 900pt heal. There are a lot of mobs that are immune to stun, all giant types for example.

itigating 25pts or 18pts of damage isn't really great either. It could act like an absurd slow for mobs with low damage output, effectively 100% slow for a very green mob for example, perhaps capping them at 1 damage per hit. Of course it's not terrible useful for these mobs anyway, because they miss so often. It could be a very minor slow for mobs with high damage output. Versus a mob that hits for 100, it's only a 25% slow to mitigate 25 points of damage. Versus a mob that hits for 200 it's half that. We're not talking uber mobs here, juggernauts in sebilis hit for that.

A shaman will still get their 73% worth and cast one heal to your four.

...and apparently you'd be happy with CH and manaburn too. :)

I perfectly well understand what slows bring to the table. However, it was stated that druid healing needs to be brought more 'in line' with shaman healing. Both have identical healing properties until level 60. The fact that a shaman gets slows affects his entire character and even his effectiveness in a group, but it doesn't make his heals land for more or have a lower cast time.

To make the assertion that shamans have better heals and then place that on the presence of their debuffs seems to suggest that you feel the best way to balance would be to give druids better heals than shamans. And if that's the solution you want, then go for it. But it's not going to alter raid dependence on CH or the use that groups have for slow.

It's what the guy said earlier. Someone needs to decide what role each class is going to have, and then aid them in fulfilling that role in every stage of the game. You aren't going to be the best healers, the best nukers or the best debuffers, but you've got a vital spot to fill with each role. Druids are Frank Sinatra, in that they can dance and act and sing a little. If you want more than that, it should involve more than just asking for an ability that's essential to the very nature of another class. Homoginization of the classes is no answer to the issue of balancing. If it were, we might as well all be playinf Fighter-Mages in the biggest, lamest D&D game ever.

And I guess that's what really gets me, cos if it's not druids upset that they have no defined role (and Verant isn't helping them to find one, and even they aren't helping themselves by claiming that the best way to fix their class is to give them powers that are generally given to members of completely separate classes) it's clerics upset that they're losing their edge in groups and soloing, it's warriors claiming that SKs have more damage capacity, HP and AC and it's SKs claiming that they can't keep taunt as well as they used to, it's wizards claiming that without manaburn they're just 'paper tanks' or it's rangers upset that their AC cap isn't ramped up, it's iksar shamans and human monks.

So, and I'm sure this will pain you to hear, I'm done with even trying to discuss this sort of thing with people who are so clearly down on their class. There's no answer that's good enough, and no contrary argument which will be percieved as anything but an attack. It's not worth it. I'm not really sure why it's worth it to you, either. EQ is like smoking. It's a habit that's only costing you money and making you miserable. Put that $120 into PlayStation games, please. Be happier.

Cause wound ... make it disease or poison based.

Any druid can tell you that while we have a choice of nukes the damage is close to equivalent...just the resistance checks change.

First Moonfire (it is the best). If cold won't land, then Wildfire. If neither lands, then Halfling Harvest Dancing and the ocassional spam heal.

This is of course assuming you are not slotted to play healer for the raid. Based on Sobe's survey, 60 % of us or more are slated for healers on raids most of the time. Quoting the stat from memory so I may be off.

Bah, I like my class my class just fine, the text must come off wrong. I like the 58 shaman I've raised with my wife, and 54 druid I raised with friends, and our warriors, and others!

I just don't think druids should be in line with shamans for healing because druids need to heal better!

I think druids and shamans and clerics should all grind mobs equally well when they want exp. I mean kills per hour for a given level of effort. That means druids need more heal power than a shaman due to slow. That means clerics need less damage power than druids or shamans due to our increased heal efficiency, although we still don't do enough damage. The shaman tactic is slow and heal less. The druid tactic is thorn to shorten the fight, and heal more. The cleric tactic is heal the best, and hope for more places to fight undead mobs in PoP I guess.

I think druids and shamans and clerics should all heal at raids equally well when they want to raid. I mean clearly defined role to help make the mob dead. Clerics in the CH cycle. Shamans doing torpor on mages/clerics to support mod rod activity. Druids doing..... personally I lean toward the healing wave of prexus for druids idea. Form up all your monks rogues sks and rangers with druids and let the druids help them thru the aes.

Bahemeiron,

you should realize that you seem to have the issues where we cant seem to have a reasonable discussion, since your the one comparing evac to slow. Huh?

You cant even acknowledge that Torpor(1200hps healed costing 200mana) is better than Natures Touch(880hp heal costing 400mana).

So before you try and act as though your the one trying to make a reasonable discussion, you should realize your not here for that, your here to troll. Some of the stuff you've said is just silly, no wonder nobodys taking you seriously.

/sigh, I don't mean to be negative, as I am glad to see a "penalty" possibly being taken away. That's giving us something that we should have always had? I know it's a start but hopefully something better will come along. I anticipate it will be a long wait before anything new comes along however I hope I am wrong :)

I don't know if hybrids also had a healing penalty but if so was this penalty also removed?

inutehavoc 52 Druid
Tutaab 26 Beaslord
Veeshan

I realize that this is a druid forum, and as such it's focused on the druid viewpoint, and so I'll try to keep my comments constructive and not troll.

Verant has done an amazing job with balancing the classes. If you look at MUD's (Everquest's original model) there are none of them that have survived as well as EQ. Verant has curbed mudflation as well as they could and given all of the classes a useful role.

Don't sell short the ability to track to and kill almost any mob you have a mind to. Don't belittle your buffs, and don't belittle your role as healers. I believe druids can suffer a marginal upgrade in their healing abilities, but given their other functions it's unfair to expect a druid to take the role of a cleric, unless a cleric can take the role of a druid (And there you have EQ2).

Even if the number of druids, clerics and shamans are equal on each server (Something most of us assume to be untrue) it's just not going to be possible to accomidate that proportion on a raid. Take, for example, the shaman. Shamans are indespensible on a raid. You -must- have shamans for most of the high-end raids, but you never need more than two or three of them. The same can be said of bards. Without occlusion and AE mana, most raids are crippled, but you only need one or two bards to do this.

This is a class interdependent game. Warriors hold the aggro, and you only need a handful of them. Rogues and wizards do the damage, and you need lots of those. Shamans, bards and enchanters provide buffing, debuffing and situational duties. Clerics heal the Warriors, mages supply the mana, and druids provide the underlying support for the clerics and mages to keep the mana flowing. It's like a machine. Everyone has a functional role. If you don't like your role, then you choose another class. At least druids have options other than raiding and grouping.

But clerics are essential, you argue, and they shouldn't be? Yes, certain functions are essential. You must have defensive warriors. You must have Complete Heal. You must have slow and tash and occlusion and malo and backstabs, but does this make clerics any more worthwhile or rewarding to play? I think that if you found that to be the case you'd be playing clerics. Trust me. Clerics are not an enjoyable or rewarding class for most people, and I'll go out on a limb here and say that there is NO raiding guild in the game that doesn't second-box clerics much of the time. You also won't find many raiding clerics who don't have alts, just as you won't find many end-game druids who don't have alts. That's just the way it goes.

I've played a cleric, a shaman, a druid and a necro, all in end-game situations. For raids, I prefer my cleric. For all other situations I prefer my necro, because my cleric is almost completely worthless outside of a raid.

This is far too long and I'm afraid it's going to be perceived as a troll (Which is not my intention). Druids can afford to have their healing upgraded just as much as a cleric can afford to be given a bit of versatility. I'd just caution both classes not to expect the moon on a platter. The grass looks greener on the other side of the fence.

Borick Ascid
High Priest of Brell
Noble Blade
The Rathe
www.magelo.com/eq_view_pr...?num=33329 (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=33329)

Edit: To those who are amazed to think that clerics would need 'balancing', try playing a cleric. You sacrifice almost everything for that evil Complete Heal spell. My level 51 necromancer is more of a badass than my cleric.

On HG3, while it is a theoretical benefit, I don't feel it should be figured into any estimate of overall healing ability at this time...except as a check to make sure that someone with HG3 is not over powered in healing (I am not sure that is possible at this point).

HG3 items remain very rare and certainly the number of druids that have them are very, very few. Same is probably true for other classes. The items they are on only are in NTOV (which already limits who can have them) and many people who are in NTOV do not have the specific HG items currently in game because they are the tank items (mostly).

When the next round of focuses enters the game, I hope HG3 items are less rare, but at this point I feel figuring them in to potential healing power of druids is very misleading. I am sure a few of the very well geared druids that post here have a HG3 item, but they are a small minority of all druids that play...even all 60 druids that play.

If you bothered reading the posts I have made you would notice that one of my suggestions is a 66% heal for druids. Yes, I, a cleric, actually made a suggestion for a druid heal thats better than what you have atm.

/cheer

I'll back you on this one Mikar. Very reasonable solution. Heh, funny thing is Druids asked for a similar solution in The Petition and were ripped to shreds (yes, by clerics) for having the audicity to tread into CH territory. /shrug

I really think your bigger point here (which you didn't really emphasize) is that the role of healing in general seems to be declining in many xp zones. This scares the crap out of clerics, who see their role being slowly devoured, NOT by Druid upgrades (or theoretical upgrades) but by MELEE power.

This reminds us of the bigger issue: are we (priests) fighting each other over table scraps (healing) when the bigger issue is the marginalizing of our abilities by ever-increasing Melee DPS and flexibility?

Think about it....what can a melee NOT get in some form that used to be part of the caster's group contribution?

*crickets chirp*

We may be missing the forest for the trees.

http://sun.he.net/~justin1/eq/sig1.jpg
agelo Profile -- www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=202599 (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=202599)

Accretion

Please notice the exact idea -
"As in - heals 66% * (Max_HP - Current_HP)"

I am not suggestion something that heals 66%*Max_HP - because very often thats the same as CH.

I admit I missed the proposal made some time ago by druids - if its similar to mine and _not_ 66% * Max_HP then I do apologise for posting the same thing again.

I look at this as a baby step in the right direction.

/sarcasm on
I'm really glad they're are taking caster balancing slow (like they did with the melee classes)
/sarcasm off

Most of the regulars are well-acquainted with this, but those of you new to the thread (and too lazy to check the archive ;) ), this is the healing improvements as outlined in the infamous Petition...

"...we suggest three ideas for bringing our healing up to a point where we are viable in our normal raid position as secondary healers.

1) Change the duration on Nature's Recovery from three minutes to 24 seconds and remove the recast time.

2) Give Druids a group heal—something along the lines of 880 hitpoints healed per member for 900 mana. This in particular was well thought of by the Druid community as it highly compliments our role of secondary healer on a raid or of primary healer of a caster/non-main tank melee group.

3) Give Druids a larger direct heal. Nature's Touch is insufficient for our current needs; the damage-per-second output of mobs has far surpassed the ability of Nature's Touch to keep even ourselves healthy, much less an entire group."

ikar,
If memory serves me, Druids caught a ton of flak for #3, which while different than the specifics of your proposal would effectively serve that same function in many settings.

Just FYI

Primero

"One neat approach that would be rather simple and kill several birds with one stone would be to start by giving all 55+ characters the ability to med while standing "

Amen. This small simple change just doesn't seem to have gained momentum for advocacy by the caster classes. Let casters move around...let them break out their weapons and take a few whacks at the mob if they like. Give them so new inventive spells which they can use when not either 1) nuking 2) healing (depending on class). The sitting to med thing is just as bad as the spellbook was. It added little for balance but added a huge detriment to the fun of playing the game.

As for the healing I hope the eventually make it so a druid only can heal for a group just like a shaman can...with both being some percentage effective as having a cleric in the group (eg. 75%).

I do feel druids should give up some nuking power in favor of healing since it's always been a bit silly to me to see a priest class rival the nuking classes.

Anyway, I hope this bodes well for your class in the future.

Daist F'reez
60 Wizard
Terris-Thule

/yawn, this change will help druids very little.

I agree with the view that Shaman's and Druid's are equal healers. Shaman's just appear to be better healers, and it's not because of Torpor (Everyone should know this!).

Question: How does a Shaman fill the main healer role without CH?

Anwser: Slow

Without slowing the mob first, a Shaman is as effective a healer as a druid...which is to say NOT AT ALL. No wait, that's not entirely true. I can play main healer if it's a single pull and I get to med back to FM after each pull!!!

ake our (mages also) DS better, and I mean WAY better. Somewhere in the 60 to 70pts a pop range. Scirroco has some good ideas about our DS and I like some of the DS ideas mentioned in this post.

Just MHO of course :)


Idawen
57th Level Druid
The Forgotten Order

Patience? I'm not being patient. Thanks for the update. Now get back to work! :)

Well I'm not gonna make a long winded speech here...

...just gonna say thank you. :)

Hey - how about at least telling us how far in you think you are toward completion? Is it 1%, 2%, 3%? And do you think you'll get this done - in the next 5yrs, 10yrs?

I do applaud the communication being brought out. It's good to see that they (=Verant) are answering ... however, I can't help it but hoping that after almost six months of considering balancing, their drawing board doesn't look like this:


- Introduce focus items, first stage
Test: completed
Live: completed
- Remove 10% penalty from non-Cleric heals
Test: In progress
Live: Yet to be done


I hope they used the past 6 months to come up with a lot more than that ...

"I hope they used the past 6 months to come up with a lot more than that ... "

They did...its called planes of power ...they probably have like 1 person left on caster balancing hehe.


Tils

I am sorry But I must agree with a few of the posters here. I do like the fact that the 10% penalty on healing is going the way of the dinosaur but....

I still do not see a viable way for a lot of druids to get some of there spells I am level 60 right now and have been for a while but I still do not have a few of my spells...


Lets see what I need

1) Legacy of Thorn Level 59 rare spell
2) Spirit of Oak Level 59 rare spell
3) Form of the Hunter Level 60 rare spell
4) Mask of the Stalker Level 60 rare spell (Luclin only off of Uber Mobs)
5) Moonfire Level 60 rare spell (Luclin only off of Uber Mobs)
6) Natures Recovery Level 60 rare spell (Luclin only off of Uber Mobs)

Now this might not seem like a problem but I do have a problem with it.

That problem being I belong to a mid sized Guild not a Uber Guild, so some of these spells I will probably never see unless I can buy them. But a most of the Uber Guilds are charging a lot for some of these spells. I do not always have a lot of time to play (I do have a real life and it sometimes intrudes) so I do not have a lot of Plat in the bank and do not have the time or inclination to be able to farm items and then spend time trying to sell them to make the PP I need to get the spells, this takes away from my enjoyment of the game.

Verant I see the economy as being really screwed up but I see a fix for it, at least in the way of spells. Add spell quests for the hard to obtain spells on the order of the Protection of Cabbage quests, Allow those people that do not have a lot of time and Plat to be able to quest their spells in order to have them where it will not cost them an arm and a leg to get. As you have it set up now Uber Guilds get more Uber and smaller guilds get used as stepping stones to get to the uber guilds to be able to get Loots that they can not get with their current guild.

Minutehavoc, yes... hybrids had the penalty also and I havent tested it but according to the post from Absor all non-clerics have had the penalty removed.

While playing my paladin after 29 it became obvious very quickly that a druid less then 29 healed the same as me. I often healed myself and let the druid worry about the other players in the group if we didnt have a cleric. A cleric would heal more with the same spell (Healing) but they get GHealing at 24 so it was a mute point most of the time. Shaman are in teh same boat.. GHealing at 29 so the same rule applied as druids.

Agree here about the rarity of dropped spells. Since spells are how casters are balanced and if you can't get them then you are less balanced than the class standard, less wanted on things, and then less likely to see the upper level spells. Spells are a casters lifeblood and making them rare and uber drops is too painful. Things you want should be dropped as loot. Things you need, like spells, should be obtainable with work, to casters.

Imagine telling a tank you can't riposte until you get a riposte item off of Grieg or you can't duel wield until you kill Dain.

Clearlt dropped spells were not thought out very well.

As has been said many times before a casters spells are their skill yet melee classes obtain increases in their skill just by leveling.

I have no problem with Verant wanting a few spells to be ultra rare and teasers for the uber guilds akin to the anchient (sp?) line of spells but the rest should be either questable (reasonable quests not the original Cabbage one) or sold on vendors.

I could even say that we should get the spells for free as I do not see melee classes having to quest for double attack or pay someone to train them but I will not go that far *smiles*

I fully understand the plight of the high level player in a low-mid sized guild. Was seems kinda silly is that spells like ROTG are easy drops for one class but not another. Why?

The other thing that is mond boggling is Verant putting high level Druid spells on mobs that require raid forces leaving Druids to fight over spots on raids in which they themselves can do little to help the raid ROTFL.

Some spells, Boo Boo Pet comes to mind, drop in a zone in which we cannot hunt or we lose critical faction!

Oh well... at least they might removed the 10% healing penalty *smiles*

Good point. It would be nice to save a few 1000 plat spent on spells and upgrade my braided ivy chords (Got to Prayer Shawl 3/4 got bored).

Good forbid I make 60th and have to buy a 20K spell... ya right.

Caster balance would go along way to be able to purchase these spells. Dang my enchanter is coming up on his 50's. Imagine needing HP/AC equipment $$$ as well as 20K for KEI?

Gratz on getting reconized from VI. All casters need to be tweaked due to the Kunark expansion. Removing 10 percent healing penalty is good.

Like to add though, that clerics should be given an additional 5% bonus on top of thier 5% percent already.
aybe even a 15% bonus. Clerics have no utility spells, clerics can not port, snare, damage shield, nuke effectively, DoT and can not solo effectively at all. Clerics can res, heal and give huge HP buffs. Clerics are totally dependant on others, druids are not.

Clerics should be at least 50% better at healing then druids and shamans due to thier specialization in a role. I love having a well played druid in exp groups, however as everyone here and in game knows druid are not desired much in raids. A little more healing power (removing 10 percent penalty) is a good start.

IMO, the defined role of druid is about generalized abilities. Druids can do a little of all, but not the best at any. The generalized abilities of druids should be increased. ie, more shaman like buffs of agi, dex, better str buffs. Possibly even a lesser melee haste and a lesser mob slow spells based on nature. (ie, Swift like the Cheetah melee haste or something)

No other class has the versatility of druids, well bards come close. Kinda the price you pay for non-specialization is undesirability in certain situations.

Flaws in that argument are three...

First, Bards are HIGHLY desireable for what they can contribute to a raid or a group.

Second, all classes in the game (from a purely customer service perspective if nothing else) should be able to find a role for themselves in end game raiding.

You shouldn't need to start over with another toon if you find that while you enjoyed the leveling you did in the first year plus you played, now you want to raid and are not particularly desired for it.

Third, much as many, many (most?) druids would prefer to nuke and happily contribute dmg that way, force of need normally forces druids to play clerics. And we are bad at it.

Heal as well as a cleric? No. I have no problem if they have their healing bonus bumped...more healing is good for everyone and I want what is best for the group of people that I play with -- my guild.

Heal better than a necro or a pally? Yes. Yes we should.

I agree Oldoaktree, all classes should find a role in the end game raiding.

I also agree on the nuking part about druids, but isnt that
what wizards are suppose to be the best at? Druid nukes should be made a little better on the high end, but not to match wizards. Maybe the defining class specialization for druids should be DoT spells. Allow certain druid DoT spells to stack on mobs, and give these same DoT's a bonus to land like wizards get with nukes.

I disagree on bards being highly desirable for xp groups though. I played a bard till 55, and it was basically this:
If xp group had chanter, they did not need bard. Bards bring some really nice features to a raid though.

aybe the real issue with balanacing druids is a feature to bring to end game raids. The biggest value I have seen from druids at raids is the FR/CR buffs. Maybe the correct route to go to finding a role for druid on raids is down the buffing/debuffing path and the DoT path. Both of these routes could lead to the specialization and defining of the role druids need for raids.

Rangers can buff melee ATK rating, why shouldn't druids get a melee ATK buff? Maybe something like a hp/agi buff would be good also. Tunare's infusion of the Sun level 59....gives 250hp, 25agi, 25str, 25ATK and stacks with all cleric,shaman,ranger,pally buffs. A debuff suggestion:
Curse of the Turtle-level 60 reduce MR,FR,CR by 15, and slow 15 percent..Stackable with all other current spells. (ie shammie slows, malo, etc)

In closing Oldoaktree, I'm not arguing here..just making suggestions on how to improve the druid class while at the same time preserving other classes defined role.

Sorry Auno did not want to fight either.

Just see any line to the effect of jack of all trades and too many other posts and threads pop into my head.

That said I appreciate your posts and thoughts.

y thoughts on your recommendation though is just that the buffer classes always tell me how dull their job is, and how you only need a very few of them (1? 2?) at a raid to get the job done.

The specific debuff you mentioned sounds fantastic to me but I honestly don't think it would pass the test. I think it could be too trivializing to tack another 15% slow on top of the already huge slow a shaman can do.

I do like that it would give us more flexibility in groups as well as something to do on raids.

For debuffs, I like other druids would like to see a cold line like the fire line we already have.

I also like the idea of ATK buffs but I am just not sure if that might be a bigger deal than it sounds like. It may be too big to pass.

Another thing Verant needs to keep in mind is the limited number of buff slots. That's why I almost think "balancing" us with a buff would be bad because it would use up a precious buff slot. How many slots do you have used on raids?

Auno1,

Absor did state,

We are also looking at some changes to help to make clerics be a little more well-rounded

In my humble opinion and my understanding of Absor post and specifically the Cleric comment...(can't speak for Absor), I would tend to believe that a bit more versatility would be given to the future role of the Cleric Class, which others here picked up on also. I would imagine this issue would go along with many concerns and several discussions both here and the Cleric class boards and over the past years about the stagnant role of the Cleric class, IE: rounding out a bit. The fall-out of this would be to spread a bit of healing around with the other priest classes. (again this is my personal opinion).

I believe its in bad taste to "request or express your class goals" on another class board.

Please don't take this as a negative comment but I can't really put it any other way: While your trying to preserve the cleric classes defined role of main healer.. others of your class may possibly have other concerns or a different opinion and do not know about this post. Again this is my opinion - I am a Druid not a Cleric. My suggestion is, you may want to bring this back to your class boards and discuss it a bit more before you speak for the entire Cleric class on The Druids Class Boards.

I personally try to follow this rule because more often then not the post basically gets "mugged" by another classes concerns.. oh.. and yes you were not the only one.. I saw other's sneak in also:

ikar (still confused about his post)
Ellzii (comment almost got the axe)
Bamana DeMoro (the Torpor-less shaman, pharm more!)
Zoffo (Robe Guy /tease)
elendar (Wizard concerned about overpowering Clerics) /sarcasm
Bahimiron (shaman guy downplaying his abilities to get more!)
Pogey Wolfhammer (I actual liked this guy, share that with the clerics)
Borick ("This is a class interdependent game, Don't sell short the ability to track.." er?)
Daist ("druids should give up some nuking power in favor of healing", heh I am Evo Druid.. phear me!")

One thing most do not understand about the Druid class.. IE: Because they do not play that class Full time.. is that Druids are basically seperated into two different roles.. and it all depends on what they specialized in.. "Alteration" or "Evocation".

Yes, we are considered a priest class and even in lore.. clerics, druids, shaman were very powerful in both healing and destruction.. either it be driven by Holy/Spiritual (cleric), Nature(druid), or combined Spiritual and Nature(shamans) means.

As for balance, Being a Druid, everything depends on My specialization and my gear. They may make all the Alteration Druids very happy with increase healing power.. I am pretty satisfied as of right now with our Evocation skills, but if the Wizard class becomes more powerful.. then I expect our Nuking power to become more powerful.. but still behind the curve of the Wizard and slightly above the Mage due to pet.

So in retrospect.. of reading the Druid comments on this thread... some may speak as if they feel that this is "ok" /evo druids.. some may be more excited.. /alt druids. IE: The healing issue really didn't concern the Evo Druids, but since they can heal.. it was "just ok".. and they are wondering about DoTs, epic snare, faster speeds, etc.. while the Alteration Druids express delight and understand how much more (20% gain total this expansion) this means.

As for the other Class Concerns.. heh.. nuff said.

"That problem being I belong to a mid sized Guild not a Uber Guild, so some of these spells I will probably never see unless I can buy them."

Good point. One of the first things I saw with Luclin was that the spells were crazy high level. Foliage Shield which is a minor convience over a level 19 spell being level 52 is silly. Same with componentless levi and EB and SoE. NR is also 60. Meanwhile clerics get a self only superior version of glades at 58 and judgement is 56!!! Both are pretty easy spells to get too.

Okay, before the kunark spell changes getting naltron sucked and getting marzin's mark sucks even more now than naltron ever did granted. Elnerik's and Garrison's are just stupid to get so wizards have the right to be frothing mad, fortunatly stalker was eased up so it's not just Grieg anymore but it's still a pain to get, but really, it's a cut and paste of hunter so who gives a @#%$. Druids got screwed for luclin spells we basically got Moonfire which is arguable better on the common boss mob spell drop table than on a soloable mob that you'll have to camp 30+ hours. It's too bad there aren't juggernaughts and gaurdian wurms in luclin for this stuff.

Grizlor, you had some good points, but I'm afraid that your post goes a bit too much into the way of a flame for this forum. However, since you did have some valid points, I moved your reply to it's own thread under the Rants section. You can find it here. (http://pub13.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgroverants.showMessage?topicID=710.topic )

Bamana DeMoro, you had some good points, but I'm afraid that your post is highjacking the current post. However, since you did have some valid points, I moved your reply to a thread under the Rants section that allows you to further express your Class needs. You can find it here. (http://pub13.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgroverants.showMessage?topicID=710.topic )

Here's another idea I had, for you folks that understand the DB (Damage Bonus) and DI (Damage Interval) theory of how mob damage works. It could even go along with allowing thorns to mitigate damage as well as return damage.

Change thorns to scale with mob damage bonuses ala Mark of Karn scaling with weapon delay.

The 25pt damage shield on a mob that his for min25 max150 would do more damage on a harder mob that hits for min50 max300, thus speeding the fight more when you need it, but not overpowering the druid's dps on low/easy blues.

Here is my tought from a cleric point...

When I created my character, I had the list of possible classes with spell list, the plus and the minus of each.

Why I played a cleric ?
Because from start I wanted to be a specialised class, I didn't want to play a semi-healer, I wanted to be the best healer you can be, at any cost, and by that time, I knew the cost compared to other priest classes would be : no solo ability, no sow, no ports, no dots, no good nukes, no invis, no pet, no slow, etc.. etc..
I paid all this for one fuction : being definitely the best healer, the only one viable against the highest mobs of the game, because when you reach the high end, in any game, only your specialisation is usefull, all the rest are toys for fun.

What is your problem ?
When you created your class, you told yourself, wow a class who can do TONS of good things, and ports are so handy to travel... but you realise now that it doesn't suit in extremes situations, in the high end, only the classes who are given extremes skills are noticeably usefull.

Are you wrong ?
Not really, because game is evolving, what was considered extreme 1 year ago is now everyday kill, but spells don't evolve like gear for melee, so non specialist classes feel more and more left behind, so retuning is needed for sure.

But...
Understand that clerics paid very hard the increased healing ability they have in term of versatility, and it's today normal that clerics ask that this cost is reduced when they see other classes approach the same level of ability in what they are meant to be "specialised".

Even more that clerics job since the practice of heal rotations has become very less interessing.

To resume...
Do I care to see druids get a heal near to CH ?
no if clerics get group teleports/succors in exchange
Do I care to see druids get reses ?
no if clerics get snare and 2300 dmg nukes and dots
Do I care to see druids get DA / DB ?
no if clerics get invisibility, spirit of ferrari testarossa and share drake form :D

I think it's all about fun, I want to be the best healer, but if I don't have anymore the pleasure to see hate in your eyes when I heal better than you do, then I can hope for something back from what I sacrify to get this status.

"Why I played a cleric ?
Because from start I wanted to be a specialised class, I didn't want to play a semi-healer, I wanted to be the best healer you can be, at any cost, and by that time, I knew the cost compared to other priest classes would be :"

Cleric pre velious and cleric post velious are two completely and utterly different things. Your whole arguement goes out the window on anyone that made their character before several months after Velious came out and CH became the one true heal, or for anyone that made a character not expecting to take part in raids where mobs hit so hard and fast the only way to deal with the damage was to chain CH.

"no solo ability, no sow, no ports, no dots, no good nukes, no invis, no pet, no slow, etc.. etc.."

And this is all garbage. Clerics can solo, they cannot solo xp as fast as other classes, but they most definetly can get a few blue of alt xp an hour solo with no problems at all.

SoW isn't castable where I spend most of my time, indoors, jboots/runspeed/horses/potions all basicaly make SoW redundant.

Clerics can now port to their home town and can rez port others. They're doing better than 90% of the classes in the game on that and it's all moot with PoP as ports become for the most part useless. Wanna hear clerics bitch if PoP instead of having ports for everyone got rid of 90% of the xp loss on death and you could port back to your body 20 seconds after dying?

Clerics have DOTs, granted they suck, but druid DOTs are obsolete for our nukes too.

Judgement is a very good nuke, at 56 it's crazy good, very competitive with druids (2nd best nuker) until 59.

Clerics have invis, it's called a GVD and my cleric has one. Soloing haze panthers is easy, getting a diamond is easy, finding a friendly tinker with decent skill looking for a skillup isn't too hard particularly after Luclin's geerlok's made tinkering skillups easier. There is also a ring in Vex Thal. Druids however have to use potions to invis undead, no GVD for them. There is also an instant cast invis animals ring if you want that.

The cleric's hammer is about as much of a pet as what druids get. *sigh*

Druids have a slow, it's 100%, lasts about 2 attack rounds, the downside is that it has a casting cost, 1 druid.

"I paid all this for one fuction : being definitely the best healer, the only one viable against the highest mobs of the game, because when you reach the high end, in any game, only your specialisation is usefull, all the rest are toys for fun."

In other words people shouldn't play anything but warriors, wizards and clerics. The other meleers are just toys, the other priests are toys, the other casters toys. Doesn't make much sense does it?

When you created your class, you told yourself, wow a class who can do TONS of good things, and ports are so handy to travel... but you realise now that it doesn't suit in extremes situations, in the high end, only the classes who are given extremes skills are noticeably usefull.

When I created my character, I did so with my two sisters. We created a warrior, cleric, and druid combo. I did so to round out our group. We had the best tank, the best healer, sow, and ports. That was all I knew when I created my character. High end raids like Nagy and Vox seemed so unlikely back then, and verm was just a dream since pof was so hard to break and only the most uber guilds did so (hehe, and verm was indeed evasive, only piece I ever got was the bracer). Nowhere in the character description did it say that druids would become mostly useless in high end raids and only certain classes would be welcome. Heck, my first character was a ranger, and back then they were seen as weak damage dealers that did no more damage than a warrior and could snare.

As for you trade offs, you basically said that as long as you get something better than what druids have, you wouldn't mind if we got something almost as good as you have, h

"Wanna hear clerics bitch if PoP instead of having ports for everyone got rid of 90% of the xp loss on death and you could port back to your body 20 seconds after dying?"

You're kidding, right? People "needing" clerics for rezzing is more a curse than a blessing. Of course it is why so many clerics go "anon". Most clerics don't play the game so they can use their mana so _others_ can go adventure/xp/play. They'd like to be doing those same things themselves. In group. They'd like to be in the group from the beginning, contributing, getting the benefits of encounters -- not called in after the fact to pick up the broken pieces and given a "Kthxbye". Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit here.

Clerics are considered a very necessary class for raiding -- where they get to rez, buff and CHeal. But in an experience group? All else being equal, it makes more sense to have a shaman or druid who can up the group's DPS rather than a purely defensive class. Doesn't it?

But let's get something strait... I completely agree that every class needs to have a role in the end game raiding situations.

-Duurk
-Just a Troll.

Sorry that is a myth.

Neither a shaman nor a druid who is playing healer is adding DPS.

Druids don't have the mana efficiency to do that. If we are healing, it is about all we are doing. Maybe a clicky dot. Ok the DS, but that is something that is available through a variety of classes and is not generally a reason a druid gets and invite.

And no, the rare exceptions that posted here acknowledged, druids are NOT getting invited instead of clerics...they are getting invited if no clerics or shamans are available. Cleric still has Aego, symbol, rez, reverse dmg shield, and yes pretty decent magic nukes if they find they have too much mana.

Druids have good nukes but we are not using them when we play ghetto clerics.

Shamans...slow, focus, other buffs....but any group that takes a druid instead of a cleric because the druid will "add DPS" will be sorely disappointed. A cleric can CH periodically for more mana efficiently and then throw in a few judgements and more than beat a druid on both healing and dmg contribution, all things being equal.

Woot ... housebroken...

But wait, that is probably a bad thing. Gotta stop posting those 500 word essays one word at a time.

"Some" Clerics also say that Complete Heal is a curse yet they defend it to the death *smiles*

Heh, without Cheal, we're not even cursed. We're nothing then. But well, we already discussed that, let's not do it here.

What is your problem ?
When you created your class, you told yourself, wow a class who can do TONS of good things, and ports are so handy to travel... but you realise now that it doesn't suit in extremes situations, in the high end, only the classes who are given extremes skills are noticeably usefull.


When I made my character it was a 50 level game .. no kunark ... no expansions at all. Next to the Plains, which you neded to be 46 to enter, Vox and Naggie WERE the uber mobs. Was a totally different world then. Kunark was released and all the classes got a relative boost in armor and/or spells. Druids didn't fair great here compared to most classes but, ya, some other classes needed more.

Then with each subsequent release we fell farther and farther behind. Waaaaaaay behind. Sure we got some minor placeboes. Some armor upgrades for instance. Tov/Kael/Thurg quest armor. As did everyone else ... but look... multitudes of even BETTER armor (and items for that matter) drop for virtually every other class in the high end game.

In the mean time Verant sees it as cool to continually give all our major and minor abilities away, to those same mellees that get all the nice armor, by item clickys, procs, and potions.

Some have said, well... they are not really "your" abilities because one or more other classes have them. That is true - BUT - Druids are the only class that have had "ALL" ( can I say all?...I believe so) their abilities given away or nerfed in some major way, with no real compensation, redesign or worthwhile upgrades. No other class would stand for this to happen to them, but the druid community should or they are whiners.

Some clerics say that it is not right that we should get healing upgrades. Well up to about 2 years ago we WERE a viable secondary healer... Some wizards say... but druids shouldn't nuke as good as other casters... Well up to about 2 years ago we WERE the secondary nuker class. Those were our strong points but they were still secondary to there prime classes ...clerics and wizards. The rest of what we had was spread around through most of the other individual classes.

Now it is spread around through ALL the other classes. In the high end game my usefullness has been decimated as a druid. When I made my character the game was level 50 and expansions were but a gleam in VI's eyes. The game has evolved dramatically as have all the classes. The druid has devolved more signifcantly compared to any class and game developement over the last couple of expansions. Would any other class stand for this.. nope. I have been around since before the beginning of live EQ and I have seen what the other classes have done when the nerf bat was headed thier way.

But druids are the whiners.
I don't think so.
But we are by far, the most comparatively nerfed class in the game and the give-aways just don't stop. What is left? Our stop the rain spell? .... hmmmm

I see a lot of mention of can V for a shaman. Druids get mask of the hunter/stalker and PoTG. These 2 spells combined bring some pretty nice mana regen without having to heal up after the effect. No its not as good as canni V but it certainly is better than what clerics get.


Now lets look at the list of what a lot of druids seem to want.

"1) Change the duration on Nature's Recovery from three minutes to 24 seconds and remove the recast time."

I dislike this change. I like the fact that this is a long duration spell. Its better than having a HoT since it can stack with the cleric/paladin spells. Its a nice slow heal almost like another regen spell but again it stacks with other regens. The problem is in its mana efficiency. The longer a spell takes to heal the more efficient it should be. I feel this spells mana cost could be cut in half and it would be balanced. That or its effect increased by about 50%.

""2) Give Druids a group heal—something along the lines of 880 hitpoints healed per member for 900 mana. This in particular was well thought of by the Druid community as it highly compliments our role of secondary healer on a raid or of primary healer of a caster/non-main tank melee group."

I am strongly against this one. This really does cut a Paladins purpose out of a raid. They have bad DPS compared to other offensive classes and very little utility(1 buff that most on raid don't want because of stacking issues). Keep the group heals in the cleric family thank you. Otherwise they will just have to rebalance paladins to make them useful in raids again.

"3) Give Druids a larger direct heal. Nature's Touch is insufficient for our current needs; the damage-per-second output of mobs has far surpassed the ability of Nature's Touch to keep even ourselves healthy, much less an entire group"

I don't buy this completely. I keep tanks healed just fine given they can wear a regen item have my own regen spell and have the slow heal of natures recovery. The big issue with this spell to me is the mana efficiency. This spell again could almost have its mana cut in half and still not be unbalanced. With the 10% nerf gone this heals what.. 880/.9 or 978 hps dmg? In any normal grouping situation you should not be taking dmg so fast that a 978 dmg heal is useless. If you are, you need to upgrade the tank for the situation not the healer. If natures recovery was upgraded like I suggested above this would make this is ever better.


I do really like the suggestion of making DS's mitigate dmg as well as do dmg. I think DS 1 to 50 is fine, but after 50 the dmg just doesn't scale well at all. This would really bring something to the druid class imo.


So in summary.

Increase mana efficiency on druid Natures recovery and touch. Both spells do their job imo but both drain mana way too fast. They should be a lot more efficient.

Change DS's to allow them to mitigate dmg as well as do dmg.

Between RotG, Natures recovery and the DS mitigating a tank would avoid 100 dmg+ a round just from the druid spells. To me this puts them relatively on par with shamans and their slow spells for a grind. Since the druid is doing dmg with the DS at the same time.

On raids the Mages do the DS not Druids.

We need to be able to do things that require more than one druid on a raid.

The only thing that requires more than one druid is nukes or heals.

Currently "most" (not all) raid leaders ask Druids to heal. Druid heals have not kept up with the tanks/mobs hit points and attack so we are asking for an appropriate bump in healing ability.

The removal of the 10% penalty is a good start but we need a bit more.

I would also venture to say that the poor Druid under level 51 who is still trying to heal using a level 29 heal might need a bump. Going from 29-50 with the same heal seems a bit drastic these days.

"All classes have great things to offer, some players don't." ~Maui WuChild, Grandmaster, Innoruuk Server, 19th Juli, 2002

The most useless I ever feel is when doing things like VS. His wonderful HT proc does more damage than I can heal everytime it does off and there isn't a single DD in a druids repertoire than can touch him. Last time my guild did VS there were over 90 people in the zone. The lag was awful so there were gaps in Rune and CH rotation.

There are a couple younger druids in my guild that need the reavers in CoM to advance epic. But without a wizard on we can't do them, nothing anyone but a wizard tosses will touch them.

I don't think druids should be the equals of wizards, but something other than Ro`s Fiery Sundering needs a lure-based effect. I'd love to see the upgrade of RFS, Ro's Smoldering Disjunction, be as unresistable as the original. I might mem it more often.

I've shelved Nature's Recovery for the most part, it was only getting cast to PL or on shaman when they needed to Cani if a cleric wasn't around to CH. With NR/RotG and a bard song shaman can heal up pretty quickly. It's not a bad spell but the recast time is horrible.

Here's one I've thought we could use for a long time, an AC component to our damage shields. Mages get FR, why let not druids get AC? Our self only DS/coats have AC, why not add AC the group versions. There are fights where resists get tossed out the window because the mob's effects are irresistable, the AC would be welcomed in those fights.

There are some spells RoK spells I have never seen, like Spirit of Oak and Mask of Hunter/Stalker. Banishment (yuck!) drops all the time. I don't think I will ever cast this spell, I only have it scribed because we had so many copied I figured I may as well use one.

There are a couple younger druids in my guild that need the reavers in CoM to advance epic. But without a wizard on we can't do them, nothing anyone but a wizard tosses will touch them.

You actually consider a Wizard to be needed for killing reavers???? 1 Cleric, 1 Tank, 1 Rogue, and either 1 monk or 1 CotH mage.. that is ALL you need for them (and I am only assuming Kunark or Planes level equipment).

Poor Druids Are Nerfed!!!
ages get 33FR/DS while Druids only get 28DS =/ (not counting the 36damage ancient spell)
And the mage pet is FAR better than the pet that Druids get!
Necro's can stack more dots and for more damage than Druids =/ Druids are only 2/3 as effective! Clearly underpowered in this area.
And would you believe it, necro's get a better pet than druids too!
Wizzards can nook for a FULL 50points more than druids! (not counting dragon/giant bane) And they have lures that land better!
Not only that, but wizzards stole the druid's capability to succor too!
anaburn anyone? GD! Druids need that too!
Sure Druids can port, but they can't Translocate like wizzards can! Druids have to travel with the parties in question.
It is true that druids get regeneration, but it's not unique! Shaman have that too! Clearly druids regeneration has been diminished because of sharing this ability.
Yeah, druids get a regen that stacks with all others healing 900 in 1.5mins but that's too slow! Clearly druids need more.
Enchanters! OMG! Druid's are sooo unbalanced here. They can only charm animals, AND chanters get slightly more self mana regen than druids! What a rip! And you guessed it, chanters get a pet!
Snare? Sure druids can snare but so can wizzies, necro's, sk's, and those half-breed melee based druid-clones.
The druid capability to invis is shared by WAY too many clases. Surely druids were ment to be the specializers here. They got the group version.
And, holy crap, druids can't cast invis to undead! WTH is that?
Oh and Healing.. here we go! Sure we got remedy and divine light, but dang... clerics can still CH! Druids need that too! I mean, sure, pallies and necro's can rez now.. and anybody with one of those vox sticks or globs of goop from DN.... but still! Druids are stuck healing clerics who mod-rod, silly casters from AE, shaman/necro's and such on raids. What a secondary job! Druids don't have nearly the manapool to do this all on their own so raids go and bring more than one druid! OMG! Clearly druids are underpowered. Oh yeah.. and when a raid isn't on an AE casting mob, all druids get to do is n00k or toss in heals to the MA! Surely druids were ment to play a more glorious role than this. I mean, they are practically gods as it is. Surely they were ment to be in high demand every where they go! This CH thing is just too much! Verant had better give druids CH or else!
Druid Gods unite!!!

/sarcasm off

Druids are a secondary class. They are the bards of casters. They can do it all, but not as well as those who specialize in each field. Your problem isn't that druids are underpowered. It is that druids are sooo overpowered there are 300billion (exageration for effect) druids on each server. Can't hardly toss a fishing grub without smacking one on the head with it. They are invaluable on raids. I'd personally love to have more driuds along. Unfortunately, most of them are off quad kiting. Or they get pissed because there's another druid on the raid and port off. Or, there's no uber druid l33t loot in that area so they hit the road. That's a seperate issue, though.

I realise that this post is futile. I realise that the majority of druids who feel this way are most likely 13 year olds who are use to playing games like Zelda and doing it ALLL. They're use to seaching out the unbalanced ~god~ class and playing it to the fullest. Unfortunately for them, VI has done a lot to reduce that capability.

I don't think I can say any more on this subject that hasn't already been said. No matter what I say or what other say, or how factual or how straight-up true things are, druids will continue to complain that they aren't the gods they wish to be. It's not only druids that do it. I've seen the same on other boards. It's just more visable in the class with the largest numbers and closest to the ~god~ status already. It only stands to reason, really. We're playing a fantasy role playing game where everyone wants to be THE hero. Each person wants to be the star of the show or knight in shining armor. That's kinda the purpose. I just hope that some might read this post and realise that there is more glory in team efforts than in personal victory.

Take care :>

Bards are the bards of casters.

Wizards (assuming both wizards and druids put all their AAXP points in and get the crits they can get) nuke for anywhere between 500 and 1000 more per nuke than a druid. The much higher rate of criting wizards get (better %'s through AAXP and innate crit rates) probably nuke for 50% more dmg for a full mana bar than a druid does. /shrug

I could go on but I don't really feel like it.

Terr,

Wizards "only" nuke for 50 more?

ages have a 33 point DS while we have 28?

BTW I'm 37, not 13 and Druids need serious work due to game changes.

Lets look at those two statements alone.

At level 60 I nuke for 1024. Are you telling me that Wizards best "obtainable" nuke is 1074? (Moonfire is NOT obtainable for 99% of Druids)

That "tiny" 5 point difference in DS makes the Raid Leader /Random between the Mages and Druids who will do the DS? Of course not - the Mage has the best DS and "one" Mage will do the DS on a raid.

For three years Verant and other classes have said "Don't improve Druids as they have SOW and ports and everything!"

Now "everyone" has SOW and with POP "everyone" will have ports - or at leave half ports so to speak.

In all fairness and let us speak of fairness here....

Should Druids be given anything to compensate for a class ability being given to the masses?

If you say no then I am interested in why?

If you say yes then why are Druids "whiners" when we point out that EVERY SINGLE CLASS DRUID ABILITY WITH THE SOLE EXCEPTION OF STOPPING THE RAIN has been given out to other classes by way of aa skills, item effects or new spells?

Selldor wrote: But we (Druids) are by far, the most comparatively nerfed class in the game and the give-aways just don't stop. What is left? Our stop the rain spell? .... hmmmm

Cassea wrote: If you say yes then why are Druids "whiners" when we point out that EVERY SINGLE CLASS DRUID ABILITY WITH THE SOLE EXCEPTION OF STOPPING THE RAIN has been given out to other classes by way of aa skills, item effects or new spells?

Who said anything about keeping the rain spell as Druid only?
This was posted earlier: Weather Rocket (http://pub126.ezboard.com/feqtraderscornerspecializedalchemymakepoisontinker ing.showMessage?topicID=310.topic). :lol:

--
Kenuon
of the Bitter Druids

lol Weather Rocket...How typical

*whistles a little tune*

It's the end of the world as we know it....it's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine....

Who said anything about keeping the rain spell as Druid only?
This was posted earlier: Weather Rocket.
Oh FFS! DRSE! There, I feel better now because I can't say what I really think.

Most intersting stuff out of here seems to come from the thread of scirocco , his first post the point 2 3 and 4 (i m here to talk about how to give back druid a correct place of healer, cleric matter, even if i agree with part of it is not the point here) if i m right, but some of those point may be interesting to review with the point i state down here... Read and give your input :)

y pointnow:
ake druid heals be based on percentage of the max hp of their target, perhaps 1 of our heal perhaps all, that is to be thought about.
Imagine Nature touch as a 33% heal (on say an avg war with 3500 4000 hp it ll be just slightly stronger than what we got now) but it will have the advantage to let us evolve along the game, when ur war has 7000hp u can finally still heal him correctly.
As to the cleric whining who may come up, Cleric CH heals on average 75% of the life of the target... which is still extremely far ahead than the 33% of supposed NT.
Some CH may do 90+% some other less than 50% but the point remain that this idea is meant to allow druid to evolve constantly with the evolution of people around them. We don t evolve, cleric constantly does everytime a warrior in the guild get that new l33ter 125hp item or whatever :)

The 33% value for NT (or perhaps say 10% for chloroblast also) could of course be argued, but what i want to put as main idea is the point of percentage heal, it sounds imho the only way to make druid evolve, while still being forever way inferior to cleric... (imho the percentage heal could be applied to any heal, from minor heal to nature recovery or regrowth or whatever u want...)

This will be different of course from the raid point of view or the xp group point of view, but in both it sounds possible to apply i think.
I d be glad to hear constructive veto or nod about that, but remember to try and stay constructive, each of those post may or may not be read by Absor...

Daki Timix
Venerable greenthing of Antonius bayle.

A number of people have suggested a half or third heal before butthe game engine (that we know) does not support it.

CH heals 10,000 I am told so in effect it is a CH. If they were to put the code in for a real percentage based heal alot of spells could be added or changed.

It would require code to be changed in game. Maybe they are working on this maybe not - who knows as Verant is very quiet lately.

We would still need a regular heal to heal when someone only needs a 400 heal but changing NT to a third or half heal would go a LONG way to fixing Druids for the duration of the game and not make us ask for a bump in healing after every expansion.

duh thx cassea *shrug*
we come back to the 'verant slack' point heh, i have not a doubt any programmer can work that out alone in few days hun...
As you ve said cassea, this kind of heal would allow constant evolution and avoid us getting n00ber and n00ber on each expansion untill we finally get a new heal after years of whining...

A number of people have suggested a half or third heal before butthe game engine (that we know) does not support it.

end is a 25% heal. If the monk has 1000 hp it heals 250 hp. If the monk has 4000 hp buffed, it heals 1000 hp. I don't think the game engine is the problem. Think of a 100,000 hp mob that uses CH, they gain 10% of their hp back. Think of a 100,000 hp mob that used a 50% heal, they gained back five times what the CH mob gained. But I'm sure they could work around that if they really want.

If verant has indeed already put in code to allow percentage heals then I can see no reason not to give Druids at least a 25% heal (many would argue for 33-50%)

A 25% heal would do nothing to help us solo and little in a group but it sure would help in raid situations. (IMHO a 33% or one third heal is more in line with what we need)

Of course I cringe when I think of what mana or cast duration requirement they might put in.

Problem with percentage heals is that their value depends entirely on who you are healing.

Enchanter with 3000 hp (with buffs)...NT is the way to go because a 25% heal would heal less.

At 25% you would need the person you are healing to have at least 4,000 hp before it would be a "better" heal than NT.

50% makes more sense to me. It is more likely to help, more of the time. On the 3000hp chanter above, that is a 1500 heal. But on a 6500 hp warrior, that is a 3250 heal.

On any warrior 60 a 33% heal will be worthwhile, of course if u aren t with some high end warrior don t expect to have the a godly heal, raise just like everyone i been lvl1 i been 40 etc and now i m in a guild with half the warrior over 7000hp buffed, it s all about evolution be patient :) 25% i think i d still be happy, 50% would be getting too close to CH , on a massive tank u d do huge healing...
Anyway, before arguing on value, let s see if EVERYONE agree about percentage heal better than numerical heal (as an update, i m not really up to eradicate all the numerical heal).
Then let s think about the right %, then all the VI's job is done let s hope they ll look it up? haha

Oak, I do damage as a healer in the party. I can manage my mana just find to throw in my debuffs, nukes and heal my party and have them all live. (Typically my raid party lives when I am their healer) Same with exp. I nuke and heal and still keep the exp flowing at a slower but decent rate.

As for the percetange I would agree with a 33% heal with the possibility of crit and focus item improvements.

Ok on a raid is a differnet story altogether. On a raid, I definitely am not healing the person taking melee dmg, and there is a decent chance no one in my group is taking dmg at all. THEN yes I nuke. Though I still have ot keep my mana levels up a bit in case anyone does get agro...or if it is an AoE mob (and lets face it most raids involve AOE).

But I had been talking about exp groups. There, every once in a while I will sneak in a nuke.

If I have a shaman with me, I nuke once per fight.

If I am the only healer, no I can't afford the mana to nuke at all.

I do clicky my bracer for 300 dmg though.

Spirit of Wolf: Increases movement speed by 34% (level 9) to 55% (level 50)
Journeyman's Boots: Increases movement speed by 35%
Traveller's Boots: Increases movement speed by 35%
Run3 is slightly below JBoots/TBoots speed. Probably around 32% or so.

Horses scale up, 5 different speeds. Only the 3rd or so equals SoW speed. The 5th one exceeds it for sure. The 1st and 2nd however most certainly do not. Also, horses cost a lot of cash. The most expensive ones cost up to 100+ kpp. Well, excuse me, but that's an amount of cash I can only dream of.

You can yell all you want that SoW is now "available to anyone", but that's just not true. SoW is still about twice as fast as TBoots, JBoots, or Run3. The only way to acquire something faster than SoW requires a tremendous cash dump.

So could we please drop the myth?

You can yell all you want that SoW is now "available to anyone", but that's just not true. SoW is still about twice as fast as TBoots, JBoots, or Run3. The only way to acquire something faster than SoW requires a tremendous cash dump.

randomshaman01 auctions, "Ten dose sow potions 100pp."

Hardly a 'tremendous cash dump.' But, jboots have always been so highly desired not because they are as fast as sow, but because they are faster than mobs. Now you can get run 3 at level 51 and be faster than 95% of the mobs in the game without the zone restrictions or having to worry about being dispelled. IMHO run 3 is much greater than sow. And if you don't think so, click on as many magelo profiles for druids, bards, shaman, and rangers as you can and see how many have run 3.

You can yell all you want that SoW is now "available to anyone", but that's just not true. SoW is still about twice as fast as TBoots, JBoots, or Run3. The only way to acquire something faster than SoW requires a tremendous cash dump.


No it is not twice as fast. SoW, Runspeed and TBoots all adds a percentage to the speed by which you are already travelling.

Let's say that the normal runspeed is 50 mph.
By using Runspeed 3 you would be travelling at (50+30%) 65 mph
With SoW you'll be at (50+55%) 77,5 mph

So that's an increase of 12,5 mph going from Run3 to a level 60 SoW, and thus nowhere near double the speed (which would be 130mph). In effect it's only a speed increase of about 19 percent going from Run3 to SoW
That is the reason why alot of my guildies don't even bother asking for SoW anymore. Most of the time the distances are short enough that it'll be faster to just run, than hang around waiting for the Druid to SoW you. The 12,5 mph extra simply doesn't matter enough for people to wait for SoW.


So could we please drop the myth?


..... Please do

IMHO run 3 is much greater than sow. And if you don't think so, click on as many magelo profiles for druids, bards, shaman, and rangers as you can and see how many have run 3.

Absolutely agree. Outdoors, sow/soe is superior to run3. Indoors, ANY movement increase, even run1, is better than a a movement increase provided by a spell you can't cast.

The best exp and loot in the whole game are dropped from mobs found in Indoor zones, where sow/soe are largely irrelevant.

Logically, the abilities we use during loot/exp encounters in the places where we (as guilds, groups) raid and hunt should be given greater weight in regards to class balance discussion; those abilities contribute towards leveling and enhancing our characters. Abilities used almost exclusively for travel convenience should be given less weight.

As ports and movement increasing abilities/items become more commonly available to all classes at high level, that lesser "travel convenience" factor loses even more weight ... until the only relevant abilities left in determining actual balance between classes, are those we use during loot/exp encounters.

~Firemynd

I would see 2 new spells for all priest classes.

A 10% and a 25% heal, main utility would be to avoid heal spells mudflation due to uber hp tanks.

25% heal would keep the same ratio as NT or Divine light when a tank starts to exceed about 6300 hps.

10% heal would keep the same ratio as Chloroblast or Remedy when a tank starts to exceed about 6000 hps.

The advantage is that it would not really change game ballance for "normal" equiped tanks or at lower levels, but when you reach a certain level of exp and equipment those spells would help all healing classes stay competitive, and diminish the focus on CH as the only efficient heal for tanks.

Those spells could be comon mobs drops (not comon drops :P) from Umbral or Ssra like zones.

Lyph,

If we thought Druid healing was fine as is then a 10% and 25% would make sense but most, even clerics, agree that a bump in healing is needed.

That is why I suggested a 33% or one third heal to be a happy compromise. We would get a slight bump in healing ability for todays average tank as well as built in future upgrades as tanks and players for that matter get more powerful.

25% keeps the status quo, 33% is enough of a bump to help us, not piss off the clerics and since it's percentage based it would scale for the future.

Put me down for a heavy recommendation of a 33% (one third) Druid heal.

So could we please drop the myth?

Tboots Jboots Run 3 and slow horses are all able to outrun the vast vast majority of the mobs in the game...which is the primary reason for increases run speed.

You may not be able to run as fast as a druid, but you can run faster than normal...increased versatility, you must now pay the toll, like Druids, by sucking at everything.

Hrmm, a 33 percent heal eh? That would be interesting in raids. Essentially you could replace 1 cleric with 3 druids in a CH rotation:

Cleric_01 casts a spell
Cleric_01 shouts, "DRUID GROUP 1 GO GO GO"
Druid_02 casts a spell
Druid_01 casts a spell
Druid_03 casts a spell
Tons of Druids shout "CLERIC 2 GO GO GO"

This looks very difficult to do if things don't go perfectly. I like it. It would require better timing, better support if rotation members die, and probably better patch heals. In the end, a raid may not be called off if a few clerics are missing and Druids are available to fill the spots.

Wyte Psycnosis <Ordo Malleus>
60 Dooid - Rallos Zek

Mana ratios with a percentage heal...this is a meaningless statement.

Say the spell is a 33% heal and costs 500 mana to cast.

On a tank with 6500 hp, that is a 2145heal with a ratio of 4.29 : 1.

On a hybrid with 4500 hp, that is a 1485heal with a ratio of 2.97 : 1.

etc.

What excites me about a third heal is that it returns Druids to the utility roll.

Not enough clerics - 3 Druids for a CH group - raid can still go on!

Not enough Wizards - Druids form Nuke group - raid can still go on.

Not a mage - Druid do DS

Not any level 60 Clerics - Druids do POTG

I'm excited about this possibility.

No Raid leader in their right mind would load up on Druids just in case they are short but I bet having 3-6 Druids on a raid would make a smart Raid Leader!

Druids would once again be able to fill in where needed on high level raids!

I am not sure that the 3 druids playing into a cleric CH would actually happen.

If you have enough clerics, a druid nukes.

If you have just about enough for the CH rot and maybe one to spare, the druid is healing their group (as best they are able).

If you have so few clerics that you can't support the CH rot, that means that druids would need to be both in the CH rot and healing the other gruops (pallys can with wave of prexus but shamans are usually too busy with debuffing).

In other words you might be able to get by with 6 druids and 3 clerics where you needed 4 clerics and 3 druids before. But it would be really really hard.

And it would not change the fact that guilds that could would get more clerics if they found this happening.

I don't think anything but CH would get you in a CH rot. But maybe they would have druids spam heal to fill in the CH rot gaps more, or hold the druids in reserve for when the clerics are oom...hoping that a 33% rot is enough to keep the tank on his feet when you are at the fast end of the fight part of the kill (wizzies nuking etc).

I'm not talking about the huge public raids or uber guilds who can pick and choose what classes they want.

I'm in a large guild and we are often short a cleric yet we have a number of druids. Guess what? The raid gets cancelled.

There are also many time in which a 2 group small raid has to be cancelled due to only 1 cleric showing up.

Even on the uber raids having at least 3 Druids available would be smart just inc case of a LD or a cleric having to leave or not showing up.

What is so sweet about this is that it will not upset Clerics because as you said clerics will always be wanted but it does place Druids right back into what we were designed for - backup!

I'm excited - very excited!

3:1 druids to clerics? That's putting druids down too far. Remember that until CH came around, we were in the 70% to 80% range.

Theoretically, it should be more like 3:2, which gets us to the 66% range. However, I'd be happy with 2:1, which would be a 50% percentage heal.

It shouldn't take more than 2 of a class to make up for 1 of another class. This is ESPECIALLY so in light of PoP group limitations. We are not going to have a lot of room to just add more players at will, so every class needs to have a bit more oomph in order to properly contribute to certain roles.

I'm in a large guild and we are often short a cleric yet we have a number of druids. Guess what? The raid gets cancelled.



Happens to us a lot too...tho lately we seem to be getting very good cleric turnout at raids again and I am nuking most of the time (woot).

What I am getting at though is if the raid were so cleric hungry that we had to put 3 druids into the CH rot, chances are we are going to fail in any case...because then no one else would have healing and DPS would steadily drop as the other melee bite the dust.

These changes look good. Thanks for the status update. Recent changes include:

1. The 10% healing penalty is gone.
2. The DoT penalty vs. free-running mobs is gone.
3. Druid pets are now buffable!
4. Mob heals no longer give a chance to break root.

These changes provide a couple benefits. First, they make their respective jobs easier or more enjoyable. Second, they reduce the "us vs. them" mentality when it comes to class balance discussions. With the pets and heals it appeared that druids were singled out to be less effective than would be expected, given a quick look at the druid spellbook. With the penalties lifted, druids can play their characters to 100% of their potential as opposed to ~90% in certain situations.

Comments:
1. 10% healing penalty lifted: Good change. I think druids will need a bit more attention in this area if they're going to be considered healers. Still, I think this change alone will allow druids to heal more comfortably (or heal, period) in certain situations.
2. DoT penalty lifted: Ehhh, ok, cool. I don't see this making much of an impact on the game, unless there are further changes in store for DoTers. *crosses fingers*
3. Buffable pets: hooray! Booboo isn't going to see Aego until Q gets a lot richer, but I will bug folks for buffs for Call of Karana charmed pets. Finally gone are the days of "hmm, no, you can't buff my pet, I'm a druid. thanks though"
4. Mob heals don't break roots: Thank you! Seeing a wimpy sk-heal snap roots *repeatedly* was so annoying! Keeping things parked will be a bit easier.

The big winners in this set of changes are probably the small-group expeditionary force druids that sneak around in dungeons with friends. Raid-focused druids who heal will have a slightly easier time of it, but their role won't change much, if at all. Raiding druids who spend most of their mana on nukes are probably unimpressed (although happy that CB and NT heal more hps in the same time).

thanks again,

-Quelm, Hierophant
Drunken Tsunami, Terris-Thule

(on vacation with a mac and a 56k modem when allllll this goes down. aaaaaaaah)

It really fries me when we get compared to Bards. Yes they have a line probably as versatile as druids for spells, but the big thing that people forget is bard songs stack with nearly everything. That is a major diffrence when you are on a raid or deciding between the various peeps LFG at zone.

Given a group of the "Holy Trinity" with the ROG and MNK or whatever and you wanna increase your potential who do you pick, Bard or Druid?

Ellzii

*Notes: numbers rounded for the sake of simplicity, and arbitrary melee hp was chosen to make numbers round out nicely.*

Complete Heal (denoted CH) : 10K - 400mana
Nature's Touch (denoted NT) : 1k hp - 400mana
25% total HP heal(denoted as PH) - 400mana
25% current HP heal(denoted as BH) - 400mana


Analysis run on a melee with 8k hp


melee at 87.5% (7k)
CH- 2.5:1
PH- 2.5:1
BH- 2.5:1
NT- 2.5:1

melee at 75% (6k)
CH- 5:1
PH- 5:1
BH- 3.75:1
NT- 2.5:1

melee at 62.5% (5k)
CH- 7.5:1
PH- 5:1
BH- 3.125:1
NT- 2.5:1

melee at 50% (4k)
CH- 10:1
PH- 5:1
BH- 2.5:1
NT- 2.5:1

melee at 37.5% (3k)
CH- 12.5:1
PH- 5:1
BH- 1.875:1
NT- 2.5:1

melee at 25% (2k)
CH- 15:1
PH- 5:1
BH- 1.25:1
NT- 2.5:1

melee at 12.5% (1k)
CH- 17.5:1
PH- 5:1
BH- 0.625:1
NT- 2.5:1


CH analysis : rewarded for delaying as long as possible
NT analysis : no reward for delay
PH analysis : more effective than NT when cast below 87.5% health
BH analysis : more effective than NT when cast below 87.5% and above 50% health


Incidentally PH stands for percentage heal and BH stands for Bad Heal. I knew in advance which heal was good and which one sounded nice but was actually largely a useless spell. Giving druids a 25% current hp heal is like giving a bottle of vodka to a thirsty person, it looks like water and makes them "feel" like they are drinking something (well kinda) but isn't gonna do sh*t to parch their thirst in the end.



Ok, these two heal comparisons aside. Please remember that CH cannot be calculated as actually being a 100% heal. The status quo for CH is that is is roughly 60-80% heal. As such a 50% full health heal would be roughly two thirds as good as CH if it cost the same mana. I think that this would be a little high for druids. A 25% full heal would be more in the one third as good range which would be a substantial upgrade to druids but without infringing on clerical sacred ground too much. Ideally I would say 30% heal is actually the best number, as it would be an upgrade today and would grow significantly with PoP (more hp assumed)

I think something along these lines would ultimately help clerics out more than druids in some ways as it is "could" take some pressure off of the clerics in guilds that only have a few where they aren't just expected at every raid but required for the raid to proceed.

Interestingly enough, this sort of spell would take significant practice to integrate into raid structure. CH rotations could become CH-PH alternating rotations with offset times (e.g. 4s between druid and next cleric but 2s between cleric and next druid) *shrug* it might add some flavor to the monotony if there was something new to learn/play with in CH rotations.

*shrug* just my 2cp...

Just a lil detail which made me smile:
Quote:
"Analysis run on a melee with 8k hp"

As far as i know only one character in game has broke the 8k cap yet its furor, more to come within the few next months prolly but well ;) (could be wrong even that furor broke it but i did hear so).
So you're analysing roughly 0.00001% of the everquest population hehe :)

I have used 5k as that is what the "average" buffed tank has.

For sure some can have up to 8k or higher but that is no the norm and you cannot balance the game baced on the top 1%.

A percentage heal looks better the more hit points a tank has as it heals more.

25% of 5k is less than 25% of 8k

I would like a 33% or 50% heal.

A 25% heal would heal about the same we do now (for tanks) but would never weaken as tanks got more hit points.

I would rather have a 25% heal over nothing but MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer a 33% or 50% depending upon what restrictions would be put on it.

As I have said before. While I would prefer an unrestricted 50% heal if Verant would only give that to us with restrictions on use (long recast time or heavy mana usage ect...) then I would prefer an unrestricted 33% heal.

Since I cannot attend the Boston Fan Fair (when will one be in Chicago LOL) can some please see how Verant feels about percentage heals and/or if they are already looking at them.

(I bet they were looking at percentage heals long before we brought it up)

To sum it up our healing at the highest level (VERY approximate):

25% heal = what we have now
33% heal = approx healing power we had at Kunark
50% heal = approx healing power we had original game (no CH)

U seem to say CH was not in since the begining, i started about the same time kunark went out so wasn t aware of jack @#%$ untill say velious start but well, Vox couldn t CH so?
When was it added in?

CH has been around since the beginning.

Its just way more effective with the introduction of modrod2.0 and higher hp tanks.

Wasnt worth a chain on old school mobs, and honestly, wasnt required, as the old school dragons were pansies.

Lushe

Jahaar
Lead Designer, EverQuest
Sony Online Entertainment
Posts: 7
(8/10/02 12:26:49 am)
Reply | Edit | Del All
ezSupporter
Luclin ports
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi all,

Thought you'd be interested to know that we're adding in Luclin ports and putting them on Test server this weekend. These spells will be available to both druids and wizards as convenient vendor sold scrolls.

We've added a Nexus port for druids, and ports to Dawnshroud, Twilight Sea, and Grimling Forest for wizards and druids. This should help cut the travel time to the remote areas of Luclin, and it's something that a lot of players have been asking for.

Take care,

- Rich

wow...that's awesome. I hope they'll let us port to those places from anywhere rather than having to wait for the boat up to luclin.

Wish I had Rich's addr to send him a 6-pack...

New Ports to Luclin.....

I can now finally move my bindpoint from Shadowhaven (Record Time of like 3 months.....Was getting tired of popping up naked at the SH bank)

PATCH MESSAGE, JULY 24, 2002

Removed the reduction in damage to Damage over Time spells when used on NPCs that are moving.

Beastlords now get Endure Disease at level 24 and Resist Disease at 51

Pets

Pet Resistance Changes: Pets will now use their master's level and resistances when saving against spells cast by NPCs (against PCs pets will use their own resistances and level as they always have) - unless the pet has special resistances, in which case it will use that resistance.
Altered pet summoning spells so that they always summon the most powerful pet possible, instead of pets within a 5 level range.
/pet report health now uses the same user defined color as spell text.
/pet report health will now display a list of the effects on the pet.
age fire pets should now cast their damage shields more often.
Wizard, Druid and Cleric pets and familiars can now be buffed by characters other than their owner.

NPCs no longer have a chance to break root when being healed or buffed.

Sorry.

We DID remove the non-cleric healing penalty, it just didn't make it into the patch message.

Ooopsie...

Just checking to see if you were still paying attention... yeah, that's it...

Alan

----------------------------------------------------------
August 14, 2002 3:00 am

** Spells **

- Changed Luclin port spells to be usable from anywhere
- Added new Druid and Wizard transportation spells for locations in Luclin

** Alternate Advancement **

- Priests and intelligence casters now have the Combat Stability and Natural Durability Alternate Advancement abilities in their Archetype

- Moved the safe point in Marus Seru to a somewhat safer spot

Name: Combat Stability
Level Requirement: 55
Ability Type: Passive
ax Training: 3 Levels
Point Cost: Level 1: 2 points
Level 2: 4 points
Level 3: 6 points
Description: This reduces damage taken from every blow which lands on the player.
It is especially useful to warriors and other main tank classes.

The first point reduces all damage taken by 2%, the second by 5% and the third by 10%.

As an example of this in a given raid if this skill is maxed it would reduce every blow that would land for 500 by 50. Over the course of 100 of these blows that is 5000hp worth of damage that never lands (and hence doesn't need to be healed).

------------------------------------------------
Name: Improved Natural Durability
Level Requirement: 55
Ability Type: Passive
ax Training: 3 Levels
Point Cost: Level 1: 2 points
Level 2: 4 points
Level 3: 6 points
Description: This spell increases the hitpoints of a player by a base percentage.
The first point increases their hitpoints by 2%, the second by 5%, and the third by 10%.

This impacts the players base hitpoints (determined by class, level and stamina).

giving druids summon bandage it all it'd take to finish caster balancing

Well being an old time druid I dont find many of these abilities being anything amazing. Im just getting back what I always had when I started years ago.

As for the pet buffs, who cares.. our pet with full 60th level cleric an chanter buffs cant even solo divin in crushbone.

Lets talk serious balance - serious change.. none of this nickel and dime stuff.

Perhaps class aa ability that no one else gets?

Im for more radical "shake em up" changes.. Like NERF the entire line of druid charm and give us another line of spells that is more useful. Something with some meat to it, something that makes a group say "Damb if only we had a druid we could do this faster, quicker, etc.".

I will be very upset if you idea of balance is giving us that 75% heal spell. If you plan to do that and stop, dont bother.. give me a couple other spells instead... Sometimes 4 quarters are better then a dollar bill.

I happen to agree with most people that have posted here so some of these ideas are new and some are old.

1. Some kind of heal spell between Greater Healing (29) and Superior Healing (51) other thean the regens. Maybe at 39?

2. Change to Druid pet situation. I have only used a charm spell on the occasional bear that is wandering around Blackburrow. And the bear pet that we can summon is just plain sad. Druids should be able to summon a Treant or something else druidic.

3. Finally, an indoor speed spell. Any SoW that could be cast indoors would be a great improvement. Even if it had to be at 65 to get it would be of massive help.

Just my 2 cp

Your Obedient Servant,

Tuuvan Arboremplexo

an indoor speed spell

It is called RunSpeed3 and that's an ability everyone has at level 51 anyway. More than sufficient too.

I myself have no problem with this spell being released at level 58 but to compensate for the lack of healing ability they should make superior healing 44, chloroblast 51, NT 55 and then keep the new heal at 58. That would allow druids to fill in better in exp groups as healers when needed for pretty much thier entire lives as apposed to pre 40 or post 58

We still need BALANCING!

Is Tunare's Renewal (and the Shaman heal) the end of our (priest) "balancing"?

I agree with other posters that have stated PoP should not be considered a part of balancing.

Has anyone heard? Is it still an "ongoing process"? Just thought I'd check, to see if anyone here knew what the current status of (priest) "balancing" is.

-Kin

Well don't expect a response from Verant on that matter because if they promise more balancing and it is not up to snuff then people will bitch and moan. If they just slip stuff in then maybe its a welcome suprise that people are not forgotten.

Who knows what the right method to do it is, but Verant will be blamed either way!

~Nallowin

There's your balance! Verant Nerfed Harmony and still no healing ability for us lower levels below 58.

Thanks
Storms

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There's your balance! Verant Nerfed Harmony and still no healing ability for us lower levels below 58.[/quote]Sigh. I want to flame this guy, but I will try and keep my temper in check.

First of all, Harmony is a level 5 spell, and outdoes ALL other lull type spells the other classes get, doesn't get resisted. Only solution is to make mobs COMPLETELY immune to lull, or make all high level zones indoor only, thus nullifying an entire spell line because of ONE spell; Harmony.

These changes to Harmony will allow Verant to remove lull immunity from a number of mobs that they dont want to be so easy to single pull.

In my opinion (yes I am a level 61 druid) Harmony has been way broken ever since first day EverQuest opened cause it is so powerful.

About the "still no healing ability" whine, I urge you to look back at the pre-Kunark times, when Greater Healing was the best heal we had. Druids were very powerful and Greater Healing was powerful enough as to be largely efficient during plane raids. The gap (CH aside) between clerics and druids wasnt very big.

Then Kunark, Velious and then Shadows of Luclin arrives, and druids get outdistanced more and more because the mobs get harder, the quipment gets better, the tanks hps get higher, and soon CH is the single most used heal spell at raids, making a raid crippled if there isnt enough clerics.

Druids are reduced to patch healers to keep casters alive, cause that's the best our heals can do. And while our heals are sufficient up to level 50, clerics still monopolize heals just like druids monopolized lilling (read about Harmony above).

Ie. Druids need to get balanced in the high level game in raids where our healing power is way outclassed. So the 75% CH gets added, to break the monopoly clerics got with CH, putting it up sufficiently high in levels as to not make clerics feel stepped on their toes too much.

The "no healing ability" part is not true, if nitpicking that statement, cause we HAVE heals but ok exaggeration improves comprehension.

The 75% CHeal could be anywhere between level 56 to 60, but at 54 where it was on test when it was first put in, is way too low in my opinion.

Level 58 for Tunare's Renewal seems like a good compromise. if it were to be moved to 56, I'd think the ratio would have to be lowered, to 2500 hps or so. So where it is now, at 2925 hps at level 58 is a good choice in my opinion.

i liked someones proposal to keep the spells we got just change the levels

44: Superior Healing
52: Chloroblast
56: Natures Touch (yes below TR)
60: Tunare Renewal

I personally liked this method. Never mad sense for us to wait so long for a heal upgrade after our 300 point heal.

I have to agree with Zhivan.
I think the changes made so far have been fair, and justified.

As for people saying we don't have any healing power sub 58, that's total crap. I was 60 by the time TR came out, and I was always healing. In groups or in duos. If you know your limits, noone has to die.

Quit whining and enjoy what you have.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you know your limits, noone has to die.
[/quote]

Yeah, a group is going to settle for limits in order to pick a druid over a capable healer (cleric or shaman) pre 58. What group is going to pick limited healing capacity as their choice for healer? The only reason you were probably grouped as a healer is because you were with guild-mates or friends. If you deny there is a druid healing problem from level 50 to 58 then the only reason you say that is because you no longer have to put up with it. Your statement makes me sick.