While removing the healing penalty does help and is long overdue/sorely needed, it can be in no way viewed as a priest/healer balancing maneuver.

It brings classes no closer to the ability of a cleric as they get complete heal and all the other healing classes get an improved heal spell at the same percentage increase.

As far as I am concerned, I have yet to see any priest/healer balancing step from Verant.

"It brings classes no closer to the ability of a cleric as they get complete heal"

Who ever said the goal was the bring priest classes closer to cleric abilities? Bad assumption... druids can do alot of things clerics only dream of. Healing is but one small piece of the puzzle. You need to factor is all the things druids can do and factor in all the things clerics can do and then take it from there.

Not to mention a few months back, hard numbers proved that removing the 10% penalty would go along way towards solving druid healing issues. There still remains the issue of the high end game healing, but for the most part this one change will resolve druid healing outside raids. The numbers dont lie and I think many of the nay sayers were surprised that the numbers added up the way they did which is a big reason you dont see it get referenced much anymore. The 10% penalty was obviously one of the main roadblocks to druid healing outside raids. Raids are another issue and it remains to be seen if Verant will take any steps to resolve that issue or if they even agree that it is one. I have never seen Verant agree that druids were meant to be any better at raid healing then they are currently... just something to think about.

The 10% healing penalty is like the hybrid exp penalty was. There is no need for it. It is time for it to go.

Baby steps...

Fairweather Pure

"Not to mention a few months back, hard numbers proved that removing the 10% penalty would go along way towards solving druid healing issues. There still remains the issue of the high end game healing, but for the most part this one change will resolve druid healing outside raids"


Please post what was stated in that post you keep reffering to from a long time ago that you consider a fact. Anybody with common sense can realize that an extra 98 hps on NT isnt going to do crap, nowhere near solve our healing problems. I really wanna see this post you keep reffering to, and how it proved that removing the healing penalty would solve all of our problems. Could you at least explain WHY it would? I mean if you read it, you would have some rationale from it why it claims to solve our healing problems. Does it say we get an extra 98 hps and all of our healing woes would be fixed?

Please try and support your arguments with some facts, instead of making these statements how other people said or wrote this. Even then, tell us why they came to the conclusion how removing the healing penalty would solve all of our healing issues. Since it makes no sense.

something is better than nothing.

/agree SillyEskimo

You have to agree that something is better than nothing. I'll bet all the programmers got together to try and address our issues, and the easiest and quickest thing they decided to do for now was remove the 10% healing penalty until they can fix the true problem.

I rember the post he's talkinga bout Broom. It was a comparison of druid to cleric direct heals level by level. Basicaly it boiled down to that if you removed the 10% penalty, suddenly the ratio between the lower level heals and the higher level heals came into 'alignment'.

I.E. The old low level rule of 2 druids to 1 cleric (baring CH) once again was true.

Removing the 10% penalty brought the direct non complete heals into their previous level progression at the high end.

I also disagree that there have been no balance issues that have been addressed. I just look at my max nukes and heals compared to 6 months ago and see your statement as false. That 10% is also more than 98 hps. Factor in focus items and AA abilities and it is a larger step than it seems at first glance. It is a welcomed change, should it go live. I put this up there as the most direct, and positive healing change to date.

Fairweather Pure

Go back and find the post yourself... it isnt like the post was that long ago and I am surprised you dont recall it since you are so outspoken.

Basically, Scirocco did some testing just before the petition was written (to prepare facts) and it clearly showed that removing the 10% penalty went along way towards resolving exp group healing issues... it showed that without the penalty the healing power of druids 50-60 was pretty consistant with druid healing 1-50 (relativly speaking) but it didnt consider raid issues (AOE DD, etc.) so only ended up applying to exp groups. Either way, it was powerful evidence that druid healing issues were not as big as many wanted to believe (especially outside of raids) and I think that test caught many druids off guard as it was almost immediately dropped or twisted into other avenues and hardly ever spoke of again since it clearly disputed what many druids claimed was a massive issue with druid healing.

Again, raid issues are different... and I have clearly stated that many times. Outside of raids, druids are not as bad off any many want to believe and with the removal of the penalty I venture to say druids are not broken at all outside raids.

How Verant finally decides to define the druid role in raids will dictate how big the issues are... until that happens, everyone is just milling around discussing the same stuff over and over again.

Batou, I remeber the thread as well. The main reason being that I knew our healing was out of sinc, but not as bad as many claimed. I remeber reading it and kinda felt a sigh of relief. I can't find it though. I know Scirocco was the person who started the thread and did the number crunching though.

I was not going to post that I remebered it until I link it... I'm already a target by going against the negetive. I'm glad you remebered it too. It was prior to the petition, I know that much if anyone else wants to look for it.

Fairweather Pure

PvV 0
VAK 1

Where's Aidon when ya need him? ;)

~Firemynd

Free rotg from a druid BP already heals almosts as well as a cleric in an exp group - because exp groups dont need much healing.

Ok, obviously not quite true - but also not entirely false.

6 people in HS - exping + killing Drusilla. War, Rog, Wiz, Shm, Bard and Clr.

In 103 mins I cast 14 CHs, 14 CEs and 3 Dls - and not because the shaman was healing - though the bard was singing Cantata some of the time. If we had not killed Drusilla but merely been exping I would have healed *half* that (and nuked even more).

Being very generous each CH did 4k (not all of them were on the warrior - and many of them only to top him off before a pull).

So, lets say I healed 80k worth - or 80 hp/tick. Rotg *free* from a BP is 90 hp/tick if everyone are hurt - 45 per tick if only 3 in your group are hurt. If you cannot exp in a way to have 3 people hurt I would say you need to pull faster :) .

Not as usefull by far as direct healing obviously - but then again I used 10k mana doing it vs 0 mana for BP regrowth - so that 10k mana does go a way when it comes to direct healing the tank.

Dont understimate that free click when exping - if you set up right it heals ALOT.

Then - I didnt have Grp Thorns either - and when you pull 4-8 mobs at a time because thats faster Thorns really add up. On the other side I may have used DA once - and in HS rezzing could be a problem.

Anyhow - I submit humbly that druids dont lack much if anything when it comes to exp groups - you are good at one sort of groups clerics are good at another and shaman as just gods when it comes to exp groups - but druids could use some sort of upgrade when it comes to raids. The problem is how to make such an upgrade without it spilling over too heavily into exp groups - in particular into the cleric "slot".

Feel free to disagree :)

Well, i'd like to see it. I find it hard to believe 98hps on NT is whats going to change everything, hell, i dont even think i'd notice a difference. I'm thinking in terms of practical experience. Even with your explanations, your only comparing us to ourselves which imo makes no sense. As if our class was ever balanced in the first place, so why use it as a staple to go by? I still dont understand why people refuse to compare our abilities to other class abilities, when that makes the most sense in terms of class balance as a whole. So if this post exists, i definitely disagree with it, or is the post absolute fact, and should be taken that way as some have done?

So we're supposed to have max AA to have adequate healing? Thats right, Rangers can get True shot. Wizards can get Manaburn. And we're stuck with getting our healing up to par with AA? Was Shaman and Cleric healing taken into account in regards to max AA as well? I dont think so. Why do people keep making excuses that only applly to Druids, but not other classes? Its like people have a double standard against Druids.

I'm sorry but i dont set my sights so low that anything they give us i'm happy with. To me 98hps on NT is an absolute joke, and its insulting to believe this is the answer. Kinda funny that other people believe this somehow 'fixes' us, do you realize how miniscule 98 hp's are in today's 50+ game?

I agree, its a step in the right direction, but by no means does it solve our healing issues. I can tell you from a lvl 60 Druids perspective, that does pickup groups and raids, i wont even notice the difference if this is the answer. I'm content with it as a first step, and would'nt have replied if other Druids werent saying its THE answer :P

I'd agree that removal of 10% penalty is a "step" in caster balancing, but I'd disagree that it is a "significant step" in priest balancing.

I would also say that it isn't fair or appropriate to consider AAXP as a benefit only to the druid side of healing, because clerics and shamans can also increase their healing capacity through AAXP. Therefore, IF you want to include AA while comparing/balancing Druid Healing vs. Cleric Healing for instance, you must assume that both classes have max AA points in any and all abilities related to healing -- including cleric only Celestial Regeneration (manaless HoT) -- THEN crunch the numbers for from a particular exp group session.

I believe that is why some druids think our healing is fine relative to other priest classes; they factor AAXP into druid heals and then compare those results to non-AAXP heals of cleric and shaman. That isn't going to give you an accurate comparison.

~Firemynd

Mikar, you give the easiest examples, and so does everybody that comes here saying our healing is adquate. You do realize lvl 60 monks can solo in HS right with very little downtime? That HS is probably one of the easiest dungeons next to Velks.

Try playing main healer in King room in OS w/o a slower. Heh, try anywhere but HS and Velks, and we're talking constant pulls here. Also, most pickup groups dont include all 60s, rarely does that happen. Your talking about a general mix between 53-60 in most places. If you travel around with your lvl 60 guild groups, i'm sure youll probaby have an easier time. Then again, your guaranteed groups because your friends, not because of your class so dont claim to speak about knowing what its like getting groups in a sheltered environment.

Its a misconception that Druids are wanted over clerics. Only when very light spot healing is needed is that true, but more often than not a group will take the cleric everytime. Shaman are a whole different story, they can by themself be substituted for the both of us, and not need the support of us, cleric, or even Ench's in certain circumstances.

On the ROTG analysis above, I will admit it sounds good on paper but there are some false arguments in there.

First, ROTG does not in fact do 80hp/tick. You are assuming that all members of your party are getting continuously damaged and that ROTG is continuously healing. This is certainly not true in a group situation (there maybe one or two people are taking damage). On a raid it is more true with an AoE mob, however you do not have the luxury of relying on a 15hp/tick/person regen spell when the mob is aoeing for 400 to 800 perhaps as often as every 5 ticks (some faster some slower).

The real situation with healing in a group is that one member is taking damage at a significant rate -- 200 to 300 dmg/tick in some exp zones, and even allowing for good armor and exp in older zones it should certainly be above 100hp/tick. Regen can never catch up. Healing...in exp groups or raids...is all about direct healing. Regens are for down time and for those who are not taking ongoing damage. Yes, it has a modest offset value to direct dmg situations but often it is not meaningful enough to notice.

The only meaningful comparison of druid and cleric healing has to be done on direct heals, and there a cleric casting even ONE CH for 4000 hp like you did 4 or 6 times you said, will blow a druid out of the water for healing over the same period.

It is just a false analysis that would somehow indicate that ROTG is healing more valuable than CH and the slew of other cleric heal spells.

As far as taking out the 10% healing penalty fixing healing as Sorrun is saying an older post indicated, this is simply ridiculous. That might be true through level 39. However, any analysis that does not figure in CH is not an analysis at all. The more recent figures showed druid healing post 39 currently running at about 20 to 30% that of clerics (that is allowing for a lower average CH than may be the case or at least not figuring in the value of the large CH's that happen in groups or raids). 10% is a good start, but this is not a healing balance. Remember a 10% lift on healing that is 20 to 30% below moves us to 22% to 33%.

I don't think Verant thinks they are done. Why are so many rushing to say "look, see? Verant did it all be happy and shut up..." I am happy about the change and welcome it (assuming it goes live). I am ok to wait and see what they do but if this is all, it would be just laughable.

Unfortunately Broom, clerics dont agree with you and I tend to believe thier game experience rather then a bunch of druids who claim to know what it is like to be a cleric. Without the 10% penalty, many groups will take a druid or shaman over a second or even first cleric many times. That being said, I think groups tend to take shaman first but that is a different discussion.

Try playing main healer in King room in OS w/o a slower.

Agreed, but many times there is a slower present so this is a mute point. Post penalty removal, a very powerful group will include a druid and shaman and if there is room for a cleric so be it... this is at the root of cleric concerns and it seems to have some merit but we will not know for sure until the change goes live.

As far as AA points in the testing.. it wasnt considered as it was either before they were implemented or too early in thier life to be understood enough to test completely. It was purely a test of typical melee HP through out the levels compared to druid healing power through out the levels. The penalty removal caused the relative healing power to even out considerably.

Don't you just love it when someone takes the best-case hypothetical scenario to prove a general point. :) If you're really talking about pick-up groups, driuds ARE at a sore disadvantage in that they don't have the luxury of forming a group that complements his/her particular healing abilities.

Sure, if I hand-pick a melee heavy group e.g. a warrior, monk(2), rogue, shaman, and druid -- all 60th level and clad in NToV gear or better -- then yes, regen with occasional spot heals would be fine and dandy for an exp grind on low blues.

Sorry but on most servers that sort of hand-picking just isn't possible in most higher level exp zones. Unless you plan on taking hours to form the group. But is that 60th level warrior going to sit with you for an hour while looking for your next "choice pick" or is he going to join that group with a cleric shouting for a tank?

~Firemynd

Lifted this from Sciroco's thread on summary of cleric and druid brainstorming. THIS is a relative healing power chart I ascribe to. The 10% change may cause more problems for clerics to get groups through level 38...but that may already have been a problem. I am not certain it will in any case because now clerics are getting experience rezzes earlier, and yes that is a benefit to a 38 group grinding at Rygor fort.


Level - Relative Power (Druid/Cleric)
1 - 82%
9 - 72%
19 - 77%
29 - 83%
39 - 14% (Cleric gets CH, assume heals 2000 pts)
49 - 7% (assume CH heals 3800 pts)
51 - 13% (Druid gets SH)
55 - 11% (Druid gets Chloro, but using SH still)
55 - 8% (assume Druid uses Chloro over SH)
60 - 15% (Druid gets NT, assume CH heals 6000)
60 - 18% (assume CH heals 5000)
60 - 22% (assume CH heals 4000)
60 - 29% (assume CH heals 3000)
60 - 35% (assume CH heals 2500)

Oldoaktree

Please reread my post. I did state that the 90 (not 80 as you write) would only be if all 6 were hurt - but that it would be 45 if only 3 were hurt - and that if you didnt have 3 people hurt in a full group of 6 something was wrong. You seems to deliberately overlook that.

I am not saying the rotg is as good as CH - but I am saying that you cannot just throw up the chart some seem so fund of (which claims the average CH at level 39 is 2k hp - hint, its not - all those numbers are very inflated - or clerics would be rezzing alot more - heck, what tanks have 3800+ hp in an exp group unless you symbol them AND have a shaman present? Definitely few - and using symbol exping at level 49 is expensive) - and then even neglect to include the *free* regrowth druids have on your BP. If you want to claim not all druids have it then so be it - but then we are not taking about the same game anymore (60 w/AA and good gear). That free regrowth has a huge impact on exping - I know how much less I heal when the group has regrowth. If you disagree we can trade and you get free MoK instead which is useless.

As for taking an easy example. Yes, I did that - but let me turn the question around and ask why druid seem to always want to bring out the hard examples?

If clerics are not better than druids at healing in HARD exp situations - even so that at *the* hardest exp spot a druids just wont work - then whats the point of having clerics?

aybe druids are just meant to be better than clerics at soloing / duoing / doing easy exp (which is often the faster exp I might add) - while clerics are better at doing hard exp groups.

And before you claim again "but some camps/zones" cannot be done without a cleric - I will counter that druids can solo places no cleric could ever hope to do. So, thats atleast somewhat even.

Anyway - I am no expert on druids - so this is only from my point of view - but I think druids are fine in the exp game - but lacking a bit in the raid game. The problem is just to adress the raid lack without spilling over into the exp game too much.

As always - feel free to disagree.

But my point is for us to even be considered we HAVE to have a slower(ench, Shaman, bard), whereas a Cleric can do fine with the heal efficiency of CH, or a Shaman can with Slow and their heal efficiency of Torpor with Cannibalize. Our heal efficiency is awful, it sucks mana outa us like many other classes wouldnt know, we dont have any heal for 300hp/tick for 4 ticks costing 200 mana spellls, or a complete heal for 400mana, all we have is a 400 mana 900's heal. Thats just sad in relatation to the other priest classes. Ya know, the classes we compete with for xp groups everyday :P

And lets be honest here. Groups pick Druids up largely to fill a healing role because they:

a) cant find a cleric

b) are satisfied enough for us to handle the healer role to complement whatever slower they have. And if they dont, then its "sorry, we're holding out for a Shaman, he can heal and slow better than you can" or "at least a Cleric can CH the MT and keep a good pool of mana afterward".

To address some of the misconceptions, we arent picked up for damage(rogues, monks, wizards, mages, etc), and rarely does a group need somebody that can do abunch of the 'little things'. What 'little things' that we do have, have that much of a bearing on an exp group where they REALLY need us? Fact of the matter is groups dont really 'need' the little things done, alot of the little things only bring some convenience, but not a direct impact on how much faster they'll go thru mobs since there are much better choices. They'll take the extra DPS w/ maybe a rogue that'll indirectly help the rate they have to heal, and the speed they go thru mobs.

I often see a group "Looking for Cleric" and then after 10
minutes with no answer, they'll settle for the Druid. I've seen this more often than not, and honestly believe this is where we fall in terms of group desirability. I dunno if you Clerics think you should be taken everytime, or if groups are supposed to wait hours for you to show up, but Clerics are the preffered choice over Druids almost everytime. Dont kid yourselves, unless your of the mentality everytime you see a group w/o a cleric you think your obsolete.

Basically, Scirocco did some testing just before the petition was written (to prepare facts) and it clearly showed that removing the 10% penalty went along way towards resolving exp group healing issues...

A long way is pretty subjective, Sorrun. I would suggest that while it is a step in the right direction, it does not go "a long way" towards resolving healing issues.

Btw, i'd trade Natures Recovery for a good HoT anyday. Break it down all you want, you'll probably come up with some incredible ratio on our regens and how much they heal over time, but in actual use you'll realize how poorly it compares to direct heals and HoT's. I mean Natures Recovery on paper sounds incredible, especially alongside RoTG. In actual use, its nowhere near what some people hype it up as, and actually a very poor substitutes for direct healing. Its good in the right situations, but more often than not a Druid will still have to rely on his direct heals more than his regens.

Its very similar to the way people love to parse our DS. At lvl 30 it was great, when mobs had less than 1k hp's. When your 50+ its ok, but dont assume its equivalent to a mage pet or anywhere near the impact it had at lower lvls. Its maybe equivalent to 1/4 a Shaman pet if that, or a step above summoning Bobo.

What you don't take into account, Mikar, is that RotG, while a powerful healing device, does not heal as much damage per tick as most characters take.

This means that Druids still need to keep the damage focused on one target, lest we be forced to heal 3 targets with our inefficient direct heals. Because 1 target is taking the damage we gain some efficiency in healing him, but we have to heal him more often.

RotG is usefull for saving mana when some character takes incidental damage.

To put it in perspective for you, imagine what you would have had to do with that group if the only spells you were allowed to heal with were DL and Remedy. That is what a Druid has to work with..only less effecient and in the case of NT vs DL, slower.

That being said, HS isn't a very good example. I know what level of the game you and the Companions are at. HS is a trivial encounter. Were it not for the HTs there, I'd be willing to bet a monk could solo there to good effect.

Removing the 10% penalty brought the direct non complete heals into their previous level progression at the high end.

Unfortunately the encounters in the high end have not scaled along the same slope. To do what Druids are asked to do, we need more effeciency and variety of healing than what simply removing the 10% penalty provides. Even in an XP situation.

If I'm the primary healer of a group, I should not have to go OOM to heal our tank 4/5th of his life after a close fight. If you suggest that Druids should not be the primary healers in any groups, then pray tell what should we be? A Cleric should not be required for every group to be viable.

>It brings classes no closer to the ability of a cleric...

People need to stop assuming that healing balancing is going to bring other classes close to the healing ability of a cleric. It almost assuredly wont, and in my opinion, it shouldn't.

Clerics should always be the premier healing class. To think otherwise makes no sense. If you want to be a member of the primary healing class, you're wasting your time playing a druid, and should PL a cleric. Druids will NEVER be able to approach a cleric in healing ability, and if we get to 50% of the ability of a cleric we'll be doing *very* well. Which brings up an important point.

Certainly our healing can be improved, but the metric to use should not be rating our class as some kind of fractional cleric (and trying to maximize the value of that fraction); instead, what you need to ask is if any changes that are made will increase the effectiveness of a druid in the healing role that druids are typically realistically going to get in high end encounters.

This change clearly does do that; it increases our healing power by 10%. It is a good thing, pure and simple. It is incredibly stupid that it took this long for Verant to remove it, but I think by now none of us are expecting fast movement out of them on this issue :-)

So it's a necessary step in the right direction.

I still dont grasp the concept that the removal of the 10% penalty is all of a sudden make every group go OMG drop that cleric now and get the druid who can suddenly heal 10% MORE! Most classes dont even know what the 10% penalty is (including many druids/clerics), much less be a noticeable difference to any groups. The chloroblast does 428 vs 385 - that is not going to make a group suddenly choose a druid. Oh and the clerics screaming that the 978 heal of Natures Touch is like 30 pts more than Divine Light - first of all, Natures Touch is a 60th level heal vs a 53rd level cleric spell, and 2ndly NT costs 400 mana versus the 350 mana of Divine Light. Third, NT takes 5.5 seconds to cast while DL only takes 4.5 seconds. Oh so imbalancing, a heal that is 7 levels higher, costs 50 mana more, and takes 1 second longer to cast will heal for 30 more pts, GASP. Celestial Elixir is the cleric's bread and butter in xp groups (1500 pt heal or 2000 if AA xp skills used) along with CH for the tank. A druid casting NT will quickly go out of mana compared to a cleric healing ability - especially in a xp group of non-stop pulling of mobs.

Anyway, the removal of the penalty is a good STEP in the direction of priest balancing. The penalty was made pre-kunark to differentiate druids and clerics at lower levels, and never had a place in the 50+ world ;p.

Unfortunately Broom, clerics dont agree with you and I tend to believe thier game experience rather then a bunch of druids who claim to know what it is like to be a cleric.

To bad you aren't able to judge the druid experience yourself.

Without the 10% penalty, many groups will take a druid or shaman over a second or even first cleric many times

Over a second cleric? I should hope so...

Instead of a cleric period? Never. CH and Rez will always provide permit a Cleric to prevail in any direct compition between a Druid and a Cleric for the primary healing slot in a group.

Increasing a Druid's ability to heal will simply permit a group who cannot find a Cleric to stand a reasonable chance at being able to group, as opposed to forcing them to sit around waiting for a cleric to log in.

Agreed, but many times there is a slower present so this is a mute point. Post penalty removal, a very powerful group will include a druid and shaman and if there is room for a cleric so be it... this is at the root of cleric concerns and it seems to have some merit but we will not know for sure until the change goes live

Your paladin frequents the King camp in Seb often?

Now its been a while since I've bothered with the King camp in Seb, but I don't know many people at all who would be willing to do that camp without a cleric. Slower or no slower. Could I heal a group down there with a shaman? Probably. Would we be killing things very quickly? No. I'd be lom alot. Would respawn catch up with us somewhere along the line? Definately. I have no doubt. The 98 hitpoints I get from the removal of the 10% healing penalty will have a minimal impact on my healing ability. It certainly will not permit me to heal our tank 4000 hitpoints instantly while a level 57 Reaver is enraged or flurrying on him dropping his HP almost as fast, or faster than I can heal him.

Also, do not underestimate the huge benefit melee recieve to their performance from Aegolism. PotC/G is a very nice spell, if you are a caster. It cannot compare to Aego if you are tanking.

Without going and looking the post up myself, if I recall correctly, Scirocco was doing the comparisons without taking Complete Heal or the Celestial line into account. He was simply comparing our direct heals to clerics Non CH direct heals.

" Btw, i'd trade Natures Recovery for a good HoT anyday."

I can't help but think that VI originally intended for druids to be masters of indirect heals, and somewhere along the way during development, "HoT" heals switched from being considered a very fast regen to being a slow direct heal.

Perhaps they should have focused cleric healing exclusively on "direct" heals-- giving them heals with more efficient cast times and mana usage; and focused druid healing exclusively on "indirect" heals -- giving them regens that heal small amounts for long durations and large amounts for shorter durations.

Granted, the spells would've needed to be different in scope and ratios than the current lines of HoT and DD heals, but overall I think the above concept would have provided far more balance in exp group viability and end raid desirability for both clerics and druids.

Some folks playing clerics obviously like the current situation: where clerics are essential to high-end encounters and druids are irrelevant in same; and those players will of course object to any healing arrangement that makes classes more equal. But drop the extremes from both sides of opinion and I think you'd find clerics and druids more in agreement than not. ;)

~Firemynd

While removing the healing penalty does help and is long overdue/sorely needed, it can be in no way viewed as a priest/healer balancing maneuver.

Yes it can and it is. This is a positive step in the right direction as far as healer balancing goes. It isn't a huge step, and it better not be the only step, but it is an important step.

6 people in HS - exping + killing Drusilla. War, Rog, Wiz, Shm, Bard and Clr.

Silly example. Without a cleric, the killing of drusilla would likely not have happened and the rest of the place is pretty much cake. I go there with my warrior and druid to duo. And a warrior has to be the worst melee a druid can duo with. Even duoing with a rogue is better there since you can use root and the druid can tank with thorns while the rogue takes out the mob fast. I could probably take my warrior there and solo using the cobalt bp for after fight heals. You don't even need the best equipment there, hehe.

So, lets say I healed 80k worth - or 80 hp/tick. Rotg *free* from a BP is 90 hp/tick if everyone are hurt - 45 per tick if only 3 in your group are hurt. If you cannot exp in a way to have 3 people hurt I would say you need to pull faster .

That has to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Yes, the druid regen isn't bad if you have three people getting hurt. Do you really believe a druid would be able to keep up with healing three people at a time? Even on the easy mobs in HS you are asking for lots of downtime or possibly cr if you have too many mobs in one of the harder wings. On the other hand, you can take a group with a paly healer and a bard through one of the easier wings and beat the respawn.

Anyhow - I submit humbly that druids dont lack much if anything when it comes to exp groups

I have always said that druids are awsome in a group because you are restricted to six spots. Druids can backup heal, nuke, dot, ds, regen, and evac. That covers a lot of spots when you can only pick six for grouping. For druids trying to main heal though, you can throw most of the rest of that out the window because healing will be sucking most of the mana, and if things go bad and the healer gets jumped on, no evac either.

Sure, if I hand-pick a melee heavy group e.g. a warrior, monk(2), rogue, shaman, and druid -- all 60th level and clad in NToV gear or better -- then yes, regen with occasional spot heals would be fine and dandy for an exp grind on low blues.

Of course, the real question is, if you are going to hand pick a high end group with good equipment, why would you put one together to fight low blues? If it were me, I would put one together with a cleric and hit a real exp spot. I would still have a druid :) but not as the main healer, and not fighting low blues. I can go duo or solo low blues, I don't need a high end group to kill them.

Unfortunately Broom, clerics dont agree with you and I tend to believe thier game experience rather then a bunch of druids who claim to know what it is like to be a cleric.

But you don't believe druids when they give the druid point of view. Thank you for calling all the druids here liars.

Without the 10% penalty, many groups will take a druid or shaman over a second or even first cleric many times.

A tank01 says, "A druid can now heal 10% better, lets take one of them instead of a cleric now." You really believe that? Any group that a druid can heal and nuke and buff and dot is a group making much less exp than that druid can get solo or duo somewhere else.

Maybe druids are just meant to be better than clerics at soloing / duoing / doing easy exp (which is often the faster exp I might add) - while clerics are better at doing hard exp groups.

Actually, a good hard exp group is as good or better exp in my experience. It comes with free resses and usually a chance at better loot (although some solo spots have good cash loot drops). It is also much less boring and doesn't have that extremely long downtime.

which claims the average CH at level 39 is 2k hp - hint, its not - all those numbers are very inflated - or clerics would be rezzing alot more

Psst, Mikar. Flashback time. You're grouped with this warrior back on Tribunal before either of us joined the Companions. His name is Aidon Frostguard, he's level 50 in reasonable gear, some planar but mostly hodgepodge armor and some yaks. He has just over 2khp when buffed with Shaman and cleric buffs. When did you usually start CHing him? When he was between 1 and 1.5 bubs of health left. CH usually hit just before his imminant death. Why? Because you were a good cleric and made the most of your mana, healing him for close to 2k. ;)

Edit: Also, given the inflation of equipment, I could see a tank in the 40's having equal HP to what Aidon had at 50 back then.

"Clerics should always be the premier healing class. To think otherwise makes no sense. If you want to be a member of the primary healing class, you're wasting your time playing a druid, and should PL a cleric. Druids will NEVER be able to approach a cleric in healing ability, and if we get to 50% of the ability of a cleric we'll be doing *very* well. Which brings up an important point."


Not that i disagree with the rest of your post, but you seem to be excluding Shamans, so do alot of people here. Why shouldnt Shamans be compared in relation to priest classes? For some reason people are only comparing a Druid to a Cleric, when a Shaman can easily be substituted for a Cleric in most situations. Why are all of you Clerics crying about Druids making you unwanted, when a Shamans abilities step on you not getting groups way more than a Druid with improved healing would. They can already self-sufficiently handle a group better than a Cleric or Druid ever could.

Why arent you telling Shaman to make a Cleric? Should Druids make a Shaman? Fact is Verant gave Shaman the power to step on Clerics far more than they gave Druids that ability. In that respect, i dont believe they intended Clerics to be the only MAIN healers. What they wanted to do was allow a Shaman and Druid to substitute for a Cleric, but they screwed up as usual, giving Shaman the core ability that makes the duo work to the point that Shaman dont even need the Druid in most scenario's. Verant overpowereed them with a HoT(torpor) that should've gone to Druids. While they should have received something along the lines of Natures Touch.

So go cry to them, or how theyre overpowered. Its like you just want to step on a class thats already been beat down, but dont want to talk about a class that made you a hell of alot more unwanted than Druids ever did :P

" Why arent you telling Shaman to make a Cleric?"

They aren't telling a shaman to make a cleric because a shaman is GOD in exp groups, with or without a cleric.

If I could effectively keep any mob from delivering over half of its normal melee attacks, LOTS of factors for surviving every encounter are minimized: MT's ability to take damage isn't as important, faster damage output isn't as significant, direct heals are needed less frequently, and crowd control isn't as crucial. To top it off, regeneration buffs have more impact in sustaining the group's health.

A shaman *can* effectively keep any mob from delivering over half of its normal melee attacks in an encounter; a shaman *can* replenish his/her own mana quickly; a shaman *can* cast regeneration buffs in addition to stat buffs which give groupmates greater ability to sustain and avoid damage.

The folks playing clerics don't get the opportunity to rebutt shaman whining because there is no shaman whining about heals; given the damage mitigation of Slow spells alone, that class is pretty well balanced relative to clerics. All the other stuff listed above is pretty much icing on the cake.

~Firemynd

Yeah, Shaman are valuable in xp groups for many reasons not related to healing. Healing is not their primary contribution by far.

The same is true of druids, contrary to the feelings of some here. What shamans provide in mitigating damage to a group, we provide in dealing damage to the mobs.

As far as conflicts go, shaman abilities overlap those of enchanters more than clerics.

*sigh* What arguement would you use Aidon if I suddenly unretired and leveled to 60... geez.. lame, childish and totally irrelivent. I suppose I should have never given you such an easy arguement by listing my level... you never knew the difference before and wouldnt have known the difference still and would have actually had to take the time to make a solid arguement instead of constantly taking cheap shots.

"As far as conflicts go, shaman abilities overlap those of enchanters more than clerics."


Completely untrue. Do Shamans get picked instead of Enchanters? Of course not, the only cross in their abilities are the ability for a Shaman to haste, and the ability for a Shaman to crowd control using slow. The choices come down to Shaman, Cleric, or Druid in terms of a groups decision in who wants to play healer. A Shaman can efficiently be a healer by themself mostly because of Slow, but the fact that they have cannibalize for mana and Torpor for one of the best mana efficient heals there is puts them miles above Druids, and i would say better than Clerics in alot of scenarios in terms of ability to heal.

Shaman are a priest class, the fact that Slow does so many things that magnify the usefulness of their other great abilities, puts them above Clerics for the most part. You tell me if Slow along with Torpor isnt more effective from a healers perspective than any direct heal in itself that Druids have. Also tell me if your nuking when your desperately trying to keep a group alive for the role they picked you up for, healing. Druids dont get picked up for dps, they get picked up as a healer 90% of the time. Thats a fact :P

" Yeah, Shaman are valuable in xp groups for many reasons not related to healing. Healing is not their primary contribution by far.

The same is true of druids, contrary to the feelings of some here. What shamans provide in mitigating damage to a group, we provide in dealing damage to the mobs."

For a second I thought you were being sarcastic, but then the sad fact occurred to me that you really don't get it.

The shaman's ability to slow a mob PREVENTS the need for as much healing, therefore the shaman is able to serve the role as MAIN HEALER for a group.

Druids CANNOT PREVENT damage in a way which scales up by percentage of the mob's damage output, therefore our mana pool (which cannot be replenished with canni) wastes away quickly.

Let's look at an example, with simplified numbers:

---Druid Main Healer---
obA hits 50 times in a 1 minute encounter, each hit doing 100 damage = 5000 points of damage for that fight.
RotG healed 150 points during that minute, leaving 4850 in damage. Cast NR four times = 1600 mana (roughly 1/3rd of the druid's entire mana pool). With constant single pulls, and in the best case scenario when others aren't taking more damage than RotG can cover, after every third or fourth fight it's time for a med break!

---Shaman Main Healer---
obA is slowed, therefore only hits 20 times in a 1 minute encounter, each hit doing 100 damage = 2000 points of damage for that fight. RoDK healed 150 points during that minute, leaving 1850 in damage. Cast Torpor twice = 400 mana, then Canni IV five times = 410 mana regained. We don't need no steenkin' med breaks!

Yes, this is a simplified example, but many other factors, such as druids doing damage to bring mobs down faster, aren't relevant because a shaman also comes with damage-dealing spells as well as manaless clickable damage.

~Firemynd

>For a second I thought you were being sarcastic, but then the
>sad fact occurred to me that you really don't get it.

Clearly, I don't.

>The shaman's ability to slow a mob PREVENTS the need for
>as much healing, therefore the shaman is able to serve the role
>as MAIN HEALER for a group.

Oh, I see. And so nuking the mob, thereby speeding up the fight, and causing the mob to do less damage (because it's DEAD) and in general speeding up xp for everyone (more mobs dead over time = faster XP) is irrelevant? No, no one would ever say that.

Oh wait, it looks like you ARE trying to say that:

>Yes, this is a simplified example, but many other factors, such
>as druids doing damage to bring mobs down faster, aren't relevant

Sure they are.

>because a shaman also comes with damage-dealing spells

So do we, and much better ones.

>as well as manaless clickable damage.

So do we.

We are much better at dealing damage in XP situations than shaman are over most of the lives of our characters.

Shaman I've grouped with spend most of their mana buffing and debuffing (including slow), much in the same way enchanters do. They then canni but are at that point at the same relative place as druids are for being primary healer. Well, except torpor.

>Also tell me if your nuking when your desperately trying to
>keep a group alive for the role they picked you up for, healing.

No, that's the role YOU get picked for. 90+ percent of the time in groups
I am expected to nuke first and heal AE damage (and the pei healer/CC) second.

:D ruids dont get picked up for dps, they get picked up as a
>healer 90% of the time. Thats a fact :P

No, YOU get picked as a healer 90% of the time. The same is not true for all of us. I am almost exclusively a damage dealer in the XP groups I do.

Oh, I see. And so nuking the mob, thereby speeding up the fight, and causing the mob to do less damage (because it's DEAD) and in general speeding up xp for everyone (more mobs dead over time = faster XP) is irrelevant? No, no one would ever say that.

Okay, lets say a druid unloads on a mob and it goes down fast. Another is pulled and a druid unloads on it and is goes down fast too. Now it is time for a med break. Nuking a mob down takes much more mana than slowing. Druids don't have cani. If druids nuke a mob down to prevent it from doing more damage, they will have lots of down time medding back up from the nukes instead of medding back up from the heals. Try again.

This is regarding what CH heals for on a typically equipped warrior.

y brother is a level 46 *GNOME* warrior (starting stamina--95) wearing crafted in all visible slots with the exception of 2 which are crusty. He is also wearing 6/65 rings, orc fang earrings, and a few pieces of spider fur.

Unbuffed Hps: 2100

With resolution (250) and symbol (525) that brings him to 2875 hps. Granted a lot of clerics don't use their best symbol at this level but that is beside the point. A cleric would easily be healing him for 2k per cheal. And he is at the lower end of hps...a large race would have more and so would a warrior with better equipment. Crafted is not exactly l33t at level 46 but this is his first character so he doesn't have a lot of spare cash.

Sure, you have to manage your nuking. But even just nuking a mob through its frenzied/enraged state prevents a LOT of damage to melee by itself; even if that's all you do, you are significantly speeding things up and saving healing mana on the main healer.

I am generally at 20-40 mana continuously, usually with C2 and often enough with C3, sometimes rodding, sometimes not. Having a horse helps a lot with casting clicky damage stuff while medding up for more nuking. In general I significantly increase the damage output of the group, speed up fights, etc.

"No, YOU get picked as a healer 90% of the time. The same is not true for all of us. I am almost exclusively a damage dealer in the XP groups I do."


You must never get picked up then because i can named a plethora of classes that can dwarf your damage output, some that dont even need mana to do it. What group is picking you up for dps? Your kidding me right? Maybe if nobody else is available. You dont ever heal in exp groups? Now i know you never get picked up for groups if your nuking when your tanks health are low and everyone else but you is expecting you to heal their @#%$.

You really dont get it, and honestly i dont think its worth debating with somebody playing a completely different game. If you think a Druid nuking and healing is the same thing as a Shaman slowing and healing, then you dont have a clue. Dont you realize you have a mana pool as a druid? That you wont have enough mana to heal and nuke at the same time unless you have some support in a slower and mana regen? When i dont have a slower, all mana is going towards heals. You must be a Super-Druid to make mana appear outa nowhere where you can heal and nuke.

Honestly, you have no idea what your talking about, since you clearly have no grasp of how much Slow trivializes encounters. Us nuking comes nowhere close to what a slow does. Druids arent picked up for dps, so good luck telling groups you dont heal. Heh, i'd laugh if i ran into a druid telling me he doesnt heal, and only nukes. That imo is askinig to be picked behinid rogues, monks, wizards, mages, etc.....

But even just nuking a mob through its frenzied/enraged state prevents a LOT of damage to melee by itself; even if that's all you do, you are significantly speeding things up and saving healing mana on the main healer.

Well, I want the heals you are casting then. I can't be the main healer for a group with no slower on any mobs that enrage. Even with a slower it is extremely iffy and requires mucho downtime. There is no way I could include nukes and I actually had the enchanter helping with chanter heals (bedlam rocks). This was when our cleric when ld in the slime tunnels in CT, and we only had two of the mobs high enough to enrage pop when we were waiting on her. I was using every one of my tools (including NR) and we barely survived keeping that one spot cleared.

>What group is picking you up for dps?

Same people I've been grouping with for years now.

>Well, I want the heals you are casting then. I can't be the main
>healer for a group with no slower on any mobs that enrage.

Where did I say anything about being main healer?

"Same people I've been grouping with for years now."


No wonder, you play in a sheltered environment where you get groups based on being friends. Try pulling that in pickup groups, and you'll get a rep as a bad druid because they will expect you to heal. A druid that doesnt heal as a first priority is a bad druid. Only when heals and mana are good, should a Druid move on to nuking. At least thats how i usually play it, then again i accept the fact that i'm picked up as some sort of healer 90% of the time.

Mikar:

Reread your post and see you did acknowledge that less dmg would be taken. Reading your full post the first time it definitely suggested to me you were saying that clerics healing power was somehow balanced by druids having a clicky regen spell (as opposed to a clerics clicky CH for all its flaws).

You seemed to suggest that druids could more or less keep a group healed with clicky ROTG and an ocassional heal. You said that it would cost you 10k mana to do what a druid could do for zero mana (ie druid could keep a group healed with ROTG). Even in older easier camps and with a slower, this is simply not true. The reality is that for a druid to heal 80,000 hp (I think that was your figure) it would cost us approximately 36k mana. It would also take us a tremendously longer time to do.

At the end of the day a druid playing healer may rely on ROTG to deal with a random bubble of health on an int caster...but how much are you going to risk say not healing a chanter in your exp group that is taking direct dmg? The only person in a group that is healing primarily with ROTG tends to be the druid him or herself. You simply don't take that kind of risk with your crowd control, or slower, or melees....esp if you don't have a cleric and so may not have rez available.

Playing healer in a group is always about direct heals. ROTG helps in the downtime and you can let it take care of some incidental dmg. However, in accumulated healing benefit over the course of a 2 hour exp grind, we are not talking about ROTG healing more than 2 to 3k hp in my estimation. You simply can't wait for someone to regen if you see them taking dmg. They will die.

Why are all of you Clerics crying about Druids making you unwanted, when a Shamans abilities step on you not getting groups way more than a Druid with improved healing would

Because Shamans know better than to ask for an increase in their powers? =D

---Druid Main Healer---
obA hits 50 times in a 1 minute encounter, each hit doing 100 damage = 5000 points of damage for that fight.
RotG healed 150 points during that minute, leaving 4850 in damage. Cast NR four times = 1600 mana (roughly 1/3rd of the druid's entire mana pool). With constant single pulls, and in the best case scenario when others aren't taking more damage than RotG can cover, after every third or fourth fight it's time for a med break!

---Shaman Main Healer---
obA is slowed, therefore only hits 20 times in a 1 minute encounter, each hit doing 100 damage = 2000 points of damage for that fight. RoDK healed 150 points during that minute, leaving 1850 in damage. Cast Torpor twice = 400 mana, then Canni IV five times = 410 mana regained. We don't need no steenkin' med breaks!

Does this mob flurry? Is the enchanter tanking? Both of those must be true if the person is taking a hit every 1.2 seconds for 100 damage. 1.)Most mobs have a delay of 18 (1.8 seconds) * 2 attacks (bash and kick have a delay of about 40). 2.)Not many xp mobs quad. 3.)Average hit % on me as a level 60 tank is about 40-45% 4.) Gear and buffs do not affect hit percentage, only damage per hit, so that hit % is pretty constant among classes with 252 defense skill fighting xp mobs. 5.) 100 average damage? I would assume it has a max of about 220 then.

That would work out to 84 DPS with the numbers you have. I generally take about 15-25 DPS on unslowed xp mobs in places like chardok and AR - slightly lower in places likes velks and the top of sebilis. That would be about 900-1500 damage for a 1 minute fight. Slowed, I take about 5-7 DPS, which would come out to 420 damage for a 1 minute fight. For that type of xp group, NR is very nice.

You must be talking about CT. CT mobs can put out those types of damage numbers, very true.

So let's be clear what you want. Being able to act as primary healer perfectly adequately in groups in most xp zones in the game isn't good enough. You also want to be able to act as primary healer in the hardest xp zone in the game, without a slower, and without downtime.

Don't get me wrong, but it sounds like that situation is what would be expected of a dedicated healer. You know, those people who do nothing but heal? Clerics sound like they fit the bill.

The way the healer balance thang is supposed to work, from what I understand, is that a group should prefer a cleric as primary healer, but if one isn't available can get by with a shaman or druid. That doesn't mean they can pull as fast as they would with a cleric, in the hardest zone in the game. It means they can survive an encounter and are able to fight AT ALL. There has to be some benefit to picking a cleric over a druid other than the "services" that can be purchased out of group, like buffs and rez.

That was what druids and shamans were clamoring for (and with reason) after the release of kunark, the ability to act as primary healer with a reduced pull rate. Keep in mind there are xp zones where a group can pull faster with a druid as primary healer than with a cleric as primary healer. Free RoTG is not trivial for a melee centric group in an easy zone. It means pulls can be back to back, non stop, with only an occasional direct heal.

If you cannot keep a well equipped level 58-60 tank alive through one fight in CT on a full bar of mana, then I agree that there should be something done. I don't know whether that is the case or not. If so, then make that the focus of your argument, not "we need more healing power".

However, in accumulated healing benefit over the course of a 2 hour exp grind, we are not talking about ROTG healing more than 2 to 3k hp in my estimation.

I generally spend over 80% of my time in xp groups below full health. Just for the sake of argument, let's say it is only half the time. In an hour, that is 4500 hp healed on me. That doesn't include incidental damage on others groups members. Admittedly, they will take much, much less damage than I do, but on the other hand a very high fraction of that incidental damage is often healed via regen. Let's assume that the rest of the group only gets 10% of the benefit that I do from RoTG. That is still 4950 hp healed over the course of an hour. That is a conservative estimate, at least for me.

I try to take advantage of regen as much possible simply because it has such insane efficiency. RoTG isn't a heal, but makes for wonderful health maintenance that can be taken advantage of by smart players.

The 2-3k estimate for 2 hours grinding seems to me to be very, very low.

BTW, non clerics don't increase 10% in healing power with the removal of the penalty. It is actually an 11.11111~% increase, so there. ;) It is important to keep in mind that it would would be an 11% increase in both efficiency and speed. Also keep in mind that this would benefit druids the most. Cleric's, shaman's, and paladin's best heals are all HoT spells, which would be unaffected. Relative healing power changes in the benefit of the druid.

Again, if you cannot keep a well equipped level 58-60 tank alive in CT on a full bar of mana through a single encounter, then I agree that there should be something done. Otherwise, let the dust settle a bit and see what happens.

At least, no more calls for CH, please.

What arguement would you use Aidon if I suddenly unretired and leveled to 60... geez.. lame, childish and totally irrelivent.

If you unretired Sorrun, levelled him to 60, and engaged in the high end game...your point of view on the Druid class would change drastically.

It is not lame. It is not childish. It is completely relevant. You are making comments on an aspect of the Druid class you've never engaged in, repeatedly trying to tell a slew of high level Druids who have "been there, done that" that they are, in fact, incorrect in their assessments. That you are, in fact, correct in your assessments, despite the fact that you haven't gotten within shouting distance of what we're complaining about.

It would be akin to me having the gall and gumption to go back to the Warrior boards and telling all the level 60 warriors who are raiding NToV or tougher encounters on a regular basis, that they do not know what they are talking about, that warriors have no complaints, and they should all STFU and take what Verant wants to give them.

Granted in many ways I do feel that way about the Warrior class ;) (its become sooo much more viable, imo, then when I played Aidon v 1.0) but you don't see me over there posting it. They would correctly tell me "STFU and come back when you've tanked anything tougher than the original Maestro, let alone Vulak or the Burrower"

You once were a great contributor to the community and the boards. I invite you to unretire, level and contribute again as you levelled (it would be amusing and interesting to see your opinions change). What you are doing now, however, is simply reiterating the same mantra of "Stop complaining, Druids are ok, we cant have them overpowered" that the Druid class as a whole was busy chanting for years out of fear of being the next Necromancers. Well, guess what. We're there. Instead of pummelling us with the Nerf bat, however, they just opened the car door put us on a rickety old bicycle and tied us to the back bumper with a 50 foot rope.

Its about time Druids stopped saying "At least they aren't beating us with that bat in the backseat" and started screaming "Let me the @#%$ back in the car, @#%$!". We're finally making this adjustment, and there you are sitting meekly on the side of the road telling us "Hush! Hush! At least you aren't being beaten with a bat in the backseat!"

Hmm I may be underestimating for the MA in an exp group but I think we need to check a few things.

First, you are the pally that plays with your shaman wife yes? If so you already have a better safety net than most groups who pull in a druid healer are. Torpor (assuming she has it) is a great spell, and you have both Lay on Hands and rezzes as backups.

Now, that said, when I am playing a healer in an exp group I do not in fact like my MA to be much below full health. The simple reason is that if I am the main healer, I need to have both time and mana to put someone back together if they get an agro problem.

Lets say everything is going ducky until one pull when there are two repops in the path back to the group. Lets say slower is out of commission...either a miscommunication and they are AFK while someone went to pull or the number of mobs in camp overhwhelms them and they die trying to get all slowed while the druid is trying to keep the tank alive. In either of those situations it can take me close to a full bar of mana to keep just the MA alive...much less the others who may be multitanking to try to get everything back under control.

I know that sounds like worst case but if you are playing healer for a group that is what you need to prepare for. And a druid's healing tools are relatively weak. I just don't like to be starting any of those situations at 80% health on the tank.

Do I immediately heal every hp? No...but I don't tend to let them hover much below 80 either.

Your calc on the MA may be valid though. Still, 4950 is 5 saved NT's for a druid....or a partial CH for a cleric.

2000 hp *average* at level 39. Thats a level 39 tank, mind - not a level 50 tank.

Let me adress that again. Sure, some of your CHs will land for 2000 hp - on warriors - in controlled situations.

Hmm, even a warrior. Level 39 - Ogre with max sta - has 1467 naked. So, to reach 2k for a CH that lands at 1.5 bubbles (thats an extremely impressive **average** - I defy any cleric to keep that day in and day for all their CHs at level 39) - the *Ogre* warrrior would need no less than +1390 hp from gear/buffs. Thats a fairly twinked warrior you got there - because cleric buffs add less than 500 *if* you use symbol.

Now take the lvl 50 numbers. 3800 hp. Naked our Ogre friend now has 2030 hp. So, to get a 3800 hp heal even if you claim our cleric friend has now perfected himself to land at 1 bubble (and noone can do that on average - there will be bad pulls, topping off for pulls, etc, etc) then you need +2720 hp from gear/buffs. Ok, at level 50 buffs will give +775 hp (assuming you use the 11pp symbol) or +557 if you use the cheaper symbol. That still leaves around +2000 hp from gear - my guilds Ogre top tank with 7300 hp buffed has +2500 hp in gear including the gain from sta.

So, the Ogre warrior with max sta - buffed with the expensive cleric symbol - wearing gear most 60s would die for - and getting healed at 1 bubble of mana is *average*?

Give me a break here - the entire table is absolute bogus and out of touch with reality - quite possibly well know by the author - to yield maximum inpact for the argumentation that druids are broken. As was clearly shown by myself - and verified by other clerics that run CH orders for raids - the level 60 "raid" average was also inflated beyond reason - yet only grudgingly was that halfways admitted when faced with hard data.

Now, since you insist on talking about druids vs clerics as MAIN healers - you cannot assume that the tank in the group is a warrior - nor have 100k+ worth of twink gear (then he doesnt even need a healer at all and the point is moot). It could be a paladin, sk, monk or ranger - with more normal gear - and you have to consider that CH does not land ON AVERAGE when the tank lies purple on the floor.

So, if you insist on using such a table - then take the above into account and report it.

- take non-warrior tanks into account. Those do happen when we are talking exping.
- dont assume a level 44 tank is buffed to the gills with symbol, shaman buffs or whatnot - he wont be on average.
- dont assume the level 50 tank has level 60++ raid loot - because most likely he wont.
- dont assume the CH lands on average at 1 bubble of health, because it doesnt. And dont even assume all CHs are on "tanks" when you get to the higher levels.
- dont forget the effect of regen spells - or atleast make a note that these are not taken into account and should count for something.

This brings me to

However, in accumulated healing benefit over the course of a 2 hour exp grind, we are not talking about ROTG healing more than 2 to 3k hp in my estimation.

Sorry, but I have to disagree - and I am amazed how you can say something like.
RotG is 15 hp/tick potentially per person.
Thats 150 hp/min per person
Thats 9000 hp/hour per person

So, 18000 hp in 2 hours if just *1* person on average isnt full health. I dont know how you exp - but I would venture I leave on average 2 people below full health at least when in a full group - so thats 36k in 2 hours - compared to your estimated 3k. So, thats a factor 12 you seem to have understimated RotG - unless you meant "per person" - then its only a factor 2-3.

Crafted is not exactly l33t at level 46 but this is his first character so he doesn't have a lot of spare cash.

Heh, Except for a few pieces here and there (EB BP, Hero bracer, Steel Kilt if you were a large race), crafted at 46 was standard when I was playing my warrior. If you had a pair of Yaks and a FBSS, or a Mith 2hander, you were as uber as it got short of dragons and the planes. Plenty of warriors did the planes on a regular basis and never saw that indico BP or the planar weapons or my personal goal as a Barb warrior w/o night vision, the vaunted RSoS. Damn..to this day I haven't seen an RSoS. I want that sword so much I'd be half tempted to equip it over the Dain axe Aidon(x) is using =P It was sooo uber looking. Black Mith 2hander look /drool.

Dammit I want my RSoS!

Absor, I'll offer a deal. Instead of prancing nekkid through EFP singing "I'm a Little Teapot", just give Aidon(x) and RSoS ok?

Oh, I see. And so nuking the mob, thereby speeding up the fight, and causing the mob to do less damage (because it's DEAD) and in general speeding up xp for everyone (more mobs dead over time = faster XP) is irrelevant? No, no one would ever say that.
Ahhh yes, over nuke, get summoned, get killed, no healer. Even if you don't get summoned, your nukes still only do far less of a percentage of a mobs hit points than your heals restore to the tank.

oonfire costs 80% of Natures touch's mana cost. This means that IF each nuke removed the same percentage of hit points on a mob as natures touch healed on a player, then I would have a mana savings of rougly 20%. That is your argument for how druids 'mitigate' damage to their parties, ala shaman.

Just one problem with that argument. Mobs have tons more hit points than players. Thus it takes tons more nukes to take a mob down and that blows your mana savings out of the water. In fact, you probably can't 'burn' the mob down before your party member would die. Yet, if you were to have just cast a heal instead he would still be alive. In both cases you would be out of mana but one has a dead tank and the other doesn't.

Same people I've been grouping with for years now.

They aren't picking you up for DPS. They are picking you up because they like you. If they wanted DPS they'd get another melee, a mage, a necro, or a wizard =P

I suppose I should have never given you such an easy arguement by listing my level... you never knew the difference before and wouldnt have known the difference still and would have actually had to take the time to make a solid arguement instead of constantly taking cheap shots.

I knew your level before. I've known for some time. You didn't always have "retired" there.

And please do not try to discount my posts by saying I'm taking "cheap shots", inevitably after reminding you just how out of touch you are, I refute your arguments.

I would love to see you become a contributor, again, Sorrun instead of a former Druid trying to hold us back with your VAKishness. You are well spoken, intelligent, and I'm certain very capable. You just have made the repeated mistake of trying to argue against us on a topic you cannot possibly understand given your characters and levels.

Go out, dust Sorrun off, show us we're wrong in all of our assessments.

thats an extremely impressive **average** - I defy any cleric to keep that day in and day for all their CHs at level 39

That's a matter of skill and comfort with the spell. I distinctly remember having to educate youger clerics healing me post level 39 with Sup Heal, telling them that two Sup Heals for 500 mana cannot even compare to what CHeal can heal me for for 400 mana (it usually didn't take too many instances of me not stopping the pulls because they said they were LOM before they realized I was nuts and they'd never survive if they didn't improve their mana effeciency).

If we took you and stuck you behind the keyboard of a level 39 cleric are you telling me you couldn't and wouldn't milk that CH for all the healing power you could muster considering how big a chunk 400 mana is to a level 39 cleric?

Ok cut the estimated value of CH in half (1000pts) ...that would make the relative power of the druid heals as follows:


39 - 28% (Cleric gets CH, assume heals 1000 pts)
49 - 14% (assume CH heals 1400 pts)
51 - 26% (Druid gets SH)
55 - 22% (Druid gets Chloro, but using SH still)
55 - 16% (assume Druid uses Chloro over SH)

A bit better and may more closely conform to reality (honestly I don't remember who originally put the list together)...but it doesn't really change much.

And really my post was simply a response to yours saying that a druid with ROTG could effectively do what a cleric does with CH mana free.

Let's take Gral's estimate of the benefits of ROTG on someone who is always less than full health (at least pretty much)...4650hp in an hour. Ok maybe true. However, the basic point about regens is that they replace hp at a much, much, MUCH lower rate than damage is done. Yes, they are always up if I am grouped...but (again) if I am playing healer I am surely not relying on em. Great for med breaks, and every once in a while I won't NT the tank between fights and just see what ROTG can do before the next pull comes in...but (as you yourself said) it is not really like a heal.

The post a few up said it all for me...lets even adjust those numbers and say a tank takes 2500 melee dmg during the course of a 1 minute fight. During that time, ROTG will regen 150 of those hp. Now lets say it is a slower paced camp (single pulls and a pause of anotehr minute while another pull is on the way to camp)...ROTG in that case healed 300hp against the dmg of 2500 taken (about 41dps on the mobs part...I don't think that is too high but admit I am not a tank and so don't track that stuff too closely).

ore common (and more the goal) for experience groups these days is continuous, multiple pulls....one or two mobs mezzed/parked while another is getting killed, and hte puller runs out for more when you begin fighting the last. While in that situation ROTG might heal 9000 hp over the hour, it is not keeping anyone alive. It is one saved CH for a cleric, 9 saved NT's for a druid. Of course we all cast it but healing in the real world is about recovering big chunks of hp at a time on a tank...regen is too slow to be a measureable benefit in my experience in regular exp grind groups.

So, to get a 3800 hp heal even if you claim our cleric friend has now perfected himself to land at 1 bubble (and noone can do that on average - there will be bad pulls, topping off for pulls, etc, etc)

Come on Mikar, you know as well as I do that the good clerics, in a normal XP grind group, time that CH to land as far back as possible. 1/2 bub and lower health is not an uncommon time for CH to land on the tank. As a warrior I never got worried about dying unless my health was already at 1 bub and I still hadn't seen that text "ClericX has begun casting a spell".

Give me a break here - the entire table is absolute bogus and out of touch with reality

I'd suggest that you either A) don't remember your roots or B) are shading your own figures to suit your arguements ;) .

Of all the classes, besides a Cleric, who is aware of what Clerics are capable of, its a Warrior and I played a warrior for a good period of time and made sure I knew all I could about the Cleric class since they were the sons of bitches keeping me, and thus the rest of the group, alive.

If Clerics, today, let CH land at 1 bub of health, vs half a bub or lower, it is because CH is already so rediculously mana-efficient, the slight loss of efficiency is insignificant compared to the HP buffer. This is directly as a result of mudflation, the increase in melee HP and the lesser increase in caster's mana. Back in "the day", Clerics milked that CH because 400 mana was a hefty chunk of change in the manapool.

I know Clerics, yet today, who pride their ability to land that heal virtually everytime below the half bub mark on a normal XP grind group. They also happen to be the best clerics I know. (Props to Ogun if you ever read this thread lol)

To further show that the table posted is bogus and manipulative I submit two missing spell levels:

24: 67%
34: 58%

Funny how those were omitted too. Maybe because they didnt fit the desired trend.

First, you are the pally that plays with your shaman wife yes? If so you already have a better safety net than most groups who pull in a druid healer are. Torpor (assuming she has it) is a great spell, and you have both Lay on Hands and rezzes as backups.

Now, that said, when I am playing a healer in an exp group I do not in fact like my MA to be much below full health. The simple reason is that if I am the main healer, I need to have both time and mana to put someone back together if they get an agro problem.

Yep, my wife is a shammy, and no she doesn't have torpor (hasn't been for sale for the 4 months she's been looking and we only have 40k pp between us and all our twinks).

The fact that my wife is a shaman doesn't change the numbers at all. That is the amount of damage I take from the average unslowed xp mob. I also listed the amount of damage I take from the average slowed xp mob. LoH, torpor (which we don't have), etc don't have anything to do with how much damage a mob does to me. It affects whether I live or not ;) but not how much damage mobs do. I generally have slightly over 1200 AC and 4k hp fully buffed, which is very average for a level 60 tank.

Why would you want your MT to be at full health constantly? What is the benefit? If you never heal him past 4 bubbles of health, he will always be benefitting from RoTG. That's 9k health per hour.

That earlier estimate I did for RoTG was like I said, very conservative. If i'm in a group with a couple other melees, I keep them about 1 bubble down, specifically to increase the healing power of RoDK. As a paladin, I can control aggro really well, so I can probably take advantage of that more easily than others, but passing aggro back and forth every once in a while isn't rocket science. Root works wonders for sharing damage.

In the groups I'm usually in, both my wife and myself are almost never at full health. I tank, she canns. We often have a rogue and/or 2 other paladins and/or a druid who fight with us. It is child's play for me to let the other melees take a hit for me every now and then to increase our efficiency. We may not be a representative group, but RoDK probably heals about 20k-40k over the course of a couple hours when we have 4 people in our group. RoDK is 600 mana a pop. RoTG is often free. That is a huge benefit that I would have thought druids would have learned to exploit to its fullest.

Druids do...even if my math is bad. I don't know any druid (including myself) that doesn't keep it up most of the time. But truth is when it drops, no one even notices if the druid is not watching it.

It doesn't change the fact that arguing it allows a druid to do mana-free what a cleric does with 10k of mana is ludicrous.

No matter how many hp you add up over time, direct heals are what is keeping people up and fighting...not regen. It is all about DPS and HPS. HPS on regen is very very low.

Remember you have to ask yourself...did having that regen on save me casting a heal? If the toon in question is taking melee dmg, the answer will always be no.

Quote:

To further show that the table posted is bogus and manipulative I submit two missing spell levels:

24: 67%
34: 58%

Funny how those were omitted too. Maybe because they didnt fit the desired trend.
ikar of the Nexus
High Priest of Brell
The Companions
The Tribunal



Actually the original chart only showed 19 and 29 you are right...but by extension that would imply the 19 ratio would still be in force until 28, and the 29 still in force until 38.

The ratios posted for 19 and 29 are actually HIGHER than those you estimated for 24 and 34...so you are saying a druids relative healing power is weaker at those levels than the original poster is, and saying it is proof of manipulation on the posters part to make the numbers look worse.

I didn't bother reposting those above because they were not the levels at issue. The relative healing of a cleric skyrockets when CH becomes available (39) and while a cleric heals better at earlier levels, secondary healers are much closer in those early levels.

It could be a paladin, sk, monk or ranger - with more normal gear - and you have to consider that CH does not land ON AVERAGE when the tank lies purple on the floor.

In that senario the poor druid would be OOM healing that tank within a pull or two. Group over, split up, go work on tradeskills because you're wasting your time trying to get XP in that senario.

- take non-warrior tanks into account. Those do happen when we are talking exping.
- dont assume a level 44 tank is buffed to the gills with symbol, shaman buffs or whatnot - he wont be on average.
- dont assume the level 50 tank has level 60++ raid loot - because most likely he wont.
- dont assume the CH lands on average at 1 bubble of health, because it doesnt. And dont even assume all CHs are on "tanks" when you get to the higher levels.
- dont forget the effect of regen spells - or atleast make a note that these are not taken into account and should count for something.

Take into account that druid trying to heal these tanks you speak of, without being buffed to the gills, without having all the good gear, etc. will be chain healing trying to keep that tank alive and with a 2.2 healing efficiency, he's going to go oom very very quickly. Every 5-10 minutes depending on his regen, he will have to drop a significant percentage of his mana if he wants to regen. Every 30 minutes or so he will have to burn a whole bunch o mana to rebuff. There's gonna be alot of downtime. Better hope respawn doesn't bitecha.

Thats 150 hp/min per person

If the person is taking any sort of steady damage, that's not going to make a difference.

I'll tell you the instances where Regens make a significant difference. When you are in a low melee damage senario and your MT is a monk or a high level paladin.

Yes in the high end game, when your druid has NR and a velious BP and the monk has a fungi and AA regen, they are a very effective combo in certain zones where the mobs dont hit very hard and the monk can effectively riposte/block/dodge a good portion of the attacks.

Similarly for a high level Paladin with his Breath of Tunare spell, or whatever spell it is that acts as a self regen for so much mana per tick (reverse Necro skelly line if you would), and Druid regens.

Of course in either instance a Shaman would be a far better choice ;) .

Aidon

I am not forgetting any roots - I can assure you that. I landed my first CH on a ranger in Ogguk within mins of getting 39 - and I calculated in detail when it was worth using and when it wasnt.

But, you are pretty much missing the *on average* part - as well as conviniently ignoring the part about non-warriors tanking.

At level 39 (or indeed at most levels) - if your tank is at 2 bubbles - do you then let him run out to pull 3-4 mobs that needs to be mezzed, cast spells, HT, etc or do you throw him a CH before he runs off? 9 out of 10 times you throw the CH before he pulls.

Thats the case for many CHs - you dont land them at the perfect time mana wise - you land them just as the last mob in the pull dies - so the puller can be full health when he pulls. Sure, I have let pullers pull at 2 bubbles - heck at 1 bubble - but thats not the average - not for me and not for clerics in generel. Why not? Because it leads to more dead tanks and ultimately less exp due to downtime from that.

Or, you dont have a chanter - you split tank. One tank is at 2 bubbles, the other at 2.5 bubbles. Do you know wait till the first is at 1 bubble and the second at 1.5 bubble? No, you dont - because the risk is too large. You heal one tank now and the other later. Again, lowering your average.

24: 67%
34: 58%

So at our best, for level 24, way back in newbie land, Druids were finally able to heal at 2/3 the healing power of the cleric. Because of that, obviously, Druids should not get any additional healing help in the high end game...

Oldoaktree

The state at level 19 doesnt by extention continue to level 28 - because unlike druids - clerics get their new heal at level 14, 24 and 34.

Also, the idea behind the table was to show how CH unbalanced the healing ratio between druids and clerics - because druids supposedly used to heal 75%-85% as well as clerics. But, at levels 24 to 28 and 34 to 38 (thats before clerics get CH) this isnt the case. Infact druids healed from from 58% to 67% as well during these levels.

So, the argument was:
SEE druids heal 75%+ as well as clerics before clerics get CH - but only 10% as well after CH.

But, thats omitting the crusial levels of 24-28 and 34-38 - where this isnt the case AND its using very unrealistic numbers for CH averages.

So, in reality is should probably have said:
- Pre CH druids heal from 58% to 85% as well as clerics. However, this is going towards 58% in the end of the ranges and during the spell levels where druids and clerics have the same spells its arguably impossible for a cleric to find a groups as druids as simply better.
- Further, post CH it appears that druids drop down to 20-25% the effectiveness of cleric unless group regen spells are taken into account. Still, with those in account druids are worse off in comparison to clerics than they were pre-CH - so some sort of upgrade is probably in order.

But - it didnt go from 80% to 10%. Its more like 60% to 25% - and thats ignoring regen spells but focussing solely on CH - and clerics cannot heal solely with CH either.

I am not saying that druids dont need some sort of upgraded heal - for raids - but I am definitely saying that the chart thats been reposted so often is completely bogus at all levels - so using it as argumentation rather than using actual realistic numbers leave you wide open to getting slammed.

Finally - notice how druids start out at 90% the healing value of clerics - at 24 its down to 67% - at 34 its down to 58%. So, if anything the trend to read from the chart with real numbers would be that druids are falling gradually in healing efficiency compared to clerics.

Oh, well - this post will also be taken out of context - and without the slightest acknowledgement that the chart posted is utterly wrong including omitting spell levels that didnt behave as wanted.

Add the fact that you didnt even realise that showing that level 24 and 34 lower ratios was in favor of my argument but actually seem to think that furthered your argument just makes me wonder.

Anyway - we will see what VI decides - maybe "your" chart gets taken as gospel by someone who doesnt bother checking the numbers against the game.

"Go out, dust Sorrun off..."

AYE!

One thing I can 100% agree on.

Send me a tell, let's get you some Elysian junk or something.

At level 39 (or indeed at most levels) - if your tank is at 2 bubbles - do you then let him run out to pull 3-4 mobs that needs to be mezzed, cast spells, HT, etc or do you throw him a CH before he runs off? 9 out of 10 times you throw the CH before he pulls.

Bahaha, you'll never catch me with that CH before I pull! Never I say! <cackle>

Still, take the same senario and ask the Druid to heal the same 1000-1500ish damage before the tank runs back out and he'll be sitting there lom.

At level 39 it will take the druid, 600 mana to heal 1000 damage. Taking into account the default 2.5 second recast time for all spells, it will take that druid 22.5 seconds.

For the same 400 mana that CH cost the Cleric, a druid could heal 540 point using Gheal. So 400 mana will heal 540 for a druid at 39. 400 mana can heal up to 2000 for a Cleric. Lets assume on a 2000hp tank the cleric heals him at 1.5 bubbles, or roughly 1/4th health. That's still 1500 points healed giving Druids 1/3rd the ability to heal as a Cleric as level 39

Fast forward to level 60.

You average tank in a group with Aego is going to have a minimum of 4000hp. More likely as not he'll have over 5000, but for the sake of argument we'll say 4000. Assuming the same 1.5 bubbles or 1/4 health, for 400 mana the Cleric will heal the tank for 3000 mana.

For that same 400 mana the Druid can heal 880 points of damage. Just under the 1/3rd mark point for point. However you can't split up our manacost of a spell based on how much you actually want it to heal..so you'll need to cast 4 NT's to cover the same 3000 points of damage.

Now, what you haven't taken into account is the fact that the cleric can sit there and cast that CH once and med for a few minutes before he'll have to cast it again. That druid will have to chain heal his NT and after the 4 NTs (and the 29.5 seconds it took the druid to heal 3k worth of damage on that tank) the Druid will have spent 1600 mana. That is 1600 mana in just under 30 seconds to heal the same damage that the cleric was able to heal in 10 seconds and 400 mana. That's a 19.5 second difference between the two. That's over 3 ticks. Assuming even just C2 and sitting, with no AA skills or FT items that's what? 25 points of mana per tick (probably more)? So in the same period of time the cleric has effectively used 325 mana to heal the same damage a druid needs 1600 mana to heal. That gives a druid 20% of a cleric's healing capability. Now, we're not talking about uber equiped characters remember? That means that poor Druid will probably have between 2700 and 3200 mana. This means that in a senario where a cleric used Ch on a tank twice in one fight with plenty of mana to spare, the Druid is oom, unable to heal anymore, unable to cast any regens, unable to use any of his vaunted "versatility".

Druids will not be replacing Clerics are the primary healer of choice anytime soon, even with the upgrades we asked for.

OMG this will teach me not to miss reading this board for a day.

I see a lot of discussion here on what it takes to heal as a druid in high-level zones. As someone who plays that role daily I have a pretty good viewpoint on it and I can definitely say that I would never be able to keep up without my constant partner, a level 60 shaman.

With the mobs slowed I have been main healer in Ssar, AR, UP, all camps in Seb and Chardok etc.. without a problem.

IMO removing the healing penalty does not balance us but is a very important first step.

I am willing to be patient regarding the caster balancing until Vi says that it is completed.

Edit Note: One additional item I should mention that it's usually a level 60 Bard doing crowd control so I'm relying on my own buffs / gear for mana regen which equals 13 ticks in an outdoor zone.

Aidon

Now you are getting somewhere. I didnt claim druids didnt need a healing upgrade (though I mainly think its for the raid game) - I was merely stating that the precentages posted in the now (in)fameous chart are bogus.

Your numbers look more in line with what I find to be correct. Make a chart based on those numbers and we might be able to agree on a basis for discussion.

Anyhow - I agree - druids wont be replacing clerics as main healers - in places where you take 3k, 5k or 10k damage per pull (depending on level - but essentially the example where the cleric had to CH twice). And I think thats how its meant to be. In places where you take more like 1k dmg per pull its another matter entirely.

And when the cleric uses 10% of his mana on heals - then even if you use 30% of your mana of heals because you are only 1/3 as good as healing - then that still only leaves the cleric 90 mana vs your 70 mana to do other stuff with - and your "other" stuff (DS, snare, Nukes, free dots) are more than 9 to 7 better than clerics other stuff in those easy cases. So, somewhere in between is equilibrium - camps that are hard enough for clerics to matter and easy enough for druids to work too - where the classes are equal healers. For the easier stuff druids win and for the harder stuff clerics win.

Just so I am clear. Do you think druids need an upgrade that lets them be the main healer in Ssra "exping" on the 2nd floor or where do you draw the limit if any?

Any comment about the fact that when we asked for a moderate healing upgrade via the petition we were blasted by many clerics saying we needed NOTHING and maybe, just maybe removing the 10 percent penalty would be ok.

Now we, sarcastically, ask for CH and all of a sudden clerics agree we need a better heal but not CH.

(CH still needs to be moved up to the 50+ level - 39 is MUCH too low IMHO)

I am glad Cassea is on my side.

Cassae

Lots of druids are stupid (as proven on this board and on other boards).
Lots of clerics are stupid (as proven on the cleric board and on other board).

Just like the reasonable druids here dont want CH or MB - you could also consider that the reasonable clerics might also see that - and might also have agreed earlier that you could do with some sort of upgrade (even if the degree is left to debate).

So, please dont claim that ALL druids act reasonably and that ALL clerics dont. Infact, I think you will find that the average cleric poster in this and other recent threads have posted atleast as intelligently as the average druid poster.

Kindly consider that.

Ohh, and for all I care you could move CH to 60. Moving it to 50 would do nothing really. Same with moving 60 spells to 57 or whatever - it doesnt really matter for me - all that matters is what you have in the end. So, please tell me - why would moving CH to level 50 matter one once to you and I - as we are level 60?

Also

I lack a comment on the fact that (most) AA skills and Focus items dont effect CH - but do effect other heals.

AA skills (10% from each of HG and HA) is 21% increase.
Focus items for healing are an unknown increase - but lets call it 10%.
Focus items for Mana Preservation are a 5.5% decrease in nominal cost - or with SCM and spec 200 its decrease in cost is 7% of the cost without MP - or stated as a gain - its 7.5%.
Removal of the old "penalty" is an 11% increase.


Overall almost a 50% increase. CH got exactly zero increase from any of those. So, lets not forget that please.

Druids will NEVER be able to approach a cleric in healing ability, and if we get to 50% of the ability of a cleric we'll be doing *very* well. Which brings up an important point.

OK then point out to me which other classes with their primary ability have the secondary class not even 50% of their ability. A hybrid tanks better than 50% than that of a warrior (closer to about 75%), also includes monks. A Bard is very good at crowd control and mana regen, close to that of an enchanter (deff above 50% the effectiveness). Enchanters slows are only slightly less than that of a shaman (deff. not more than 50% lower). But NO-ONE comes as close to 50% to the healing power of a cleric. Why should they have such a monopoly over the market.

I'm certainly not saying they shouldn't be number 1, I know that is their role and I'll leave directly in their court. But why can't we give druids a 66%-75% CH (heals target to 66-75% health). So the player will still be injured and need some more direct healing to get to fill (hence less mana/time efficent than CH).

This will leave Clerics as the preferable class for healing, but at least players have another class they can turn to if the need is great. At the moment some groups are "no cleric, no go". It'll be good for the community to have a backup class for them.

Of Course the Semi-Complete Heal will be a 10 second heal for say 400-500 mana, therefore it will fall into all the same categories as CH in that it wont be affected by AA or focus items (or anything that would help it catch up to CH).

I can't understand why we continue to let an obvious anti ex druid of dubious level and a various bunch of VAKS/Trolls attempt to tell us that the removal of the unjust 10% penalty fixes or helps balance druids in anything more than a small way!!

So when it's introduced on Live - we suddenly become totally balanced in exp groups and are now more desirable on raids at the end game!! DOH!

Stop letting non-experienced idiots with an anti druid viewpoint (or axe to grind) drag you into trying to substiate what we (and all other healers) obviously deserved ages ago!

I'm not saying don't let them post but at least give them the utter disdain they deserve. I know that genuine knowledgeable druids want to defend and counter the obvious mis-directed posts by them (which you all do admirably but thats only tends to legitimise their trolling!

Druids on this board have - many times over - clearly demonstrated where and why druids are broken - Verant have obviously heard the message! Now lets concentrate on helping Verant fix it.

Whatever we say or whatever happens we won't change the opinions of the naysayers. Don't feed the Trolls.

Concentrate on the genuine counter-arguments and respond to them only - in the professional way with facts - that so many of you can - I am proud of you!

Abbi

Quote:

I lack a comment on the fact that (most) AA skills and Focus items dont effect CH - but do effect other heals.

Comment:

And how would you improve a spell that heals all damage?

If you are reffering to casting time I believe that Verant admitted that CH was a mistake (much like the Manastone) and while they would like to remove it they would keep it in the game but never make it more powereful.

And as far as having nut cases in the game - I think all classes have nut cases *smiles* and I'm sure some of my posts were labeled as such :)

Although I'm not the only one in this situation I can say that I have played my Druid Cass as my sole character since the game started. I will also say (whether you believe me or not) that I have NEVER quadded except for the trial quad here and there to see how it works in all my 60 levels.

I guess being around so long and ONLY playing a Druid - not having the option to switch to another class on a raid in which a Druid was not needed and hearing three years of the nut cakes shouting Druid hate has made me a bit defensive and reactive at this stage of the game.

I could always have started another class but I love my Druid and I love to play my Druid. I prefer to group even if I get more exp soloing (why would ANYONE solo for fun?) but often I have to solo as I cannot get a group.

As I said before I know I'm not the only Druid who has experienced this and I am smart enough to know that some of a Druids grouping issues were directly related to the large number of Druids.

Thank god I was lucky and got into a mid-sized guild who accept people and not classes. We have a large number of Druids in the guild and they all say the same thing - the high level guilds do not want druids.

ost of the high level guilds on Eci list the Druid joining requirement as level 61 *smiles*

Well I am happy Verant has at least spoken :)

I'll hold my breath and hope.

BTW as far as moving CH. I only say this as a spell that powerful should not be obtained at such a low level. Of course snare is pretty darn powerful and we get it at level 1 so WTH *smiles*

I can't understand why we continue to let an obvious anti ex druid of dubious level and a various bunch of VAKS/Trolls attempt to tell us that the removal of the unjust 10% penalty fixes or helps balance druids in anything more than a small way!!

Abbi, 52 isn't a dubious level. Sorrun has a right to post his opinions here, and when he doesn't know what he's talking about, others are quick to point it out, and when he's right or has some good insight, others point that out, too. As for these VAKs you refer to, hey! I have an idea. Why don't you call me a VAK as well since I try to maintain relationships diplomatically? Insulting or threatening VI employees isn't productive; it does no good.



Stop letting non-experienced idiots with an anti druid viewpoint (or axe to grind) drag you into trying to substiate what we (and all other healers) obviously deserved ages ago!

Yeah, thanks for the warning, but as the staff has said before, as long as debates remain civil, there's no need to shut anyone up or off.


I'm not saying don't let them post but at least give them the utter disdain they deserve.
I won't tolerate hatemongering on this board, and neither will the mods.

__________________________________________________ _
I won't tolerate hatemongering on this board, and neither will the mods.
__________________________________________________ _

Thanks for missing the point completely - disdain by ignoring is not hate mongering so please dont try and treat it as such!!

As I said clearly in the post I'm not suggesting that anybody be stopped from posting on any board - so kindly please read the post properly or perhaps get a dictionary for the words you don't understand before your respond with motherhood and preaching.

Im well aware of the need for free speech - I just don't think it helps to encourage obvious and continued anti-druid posts by responding to them. My opinion and I will stick with it :)

You may also choose to respond by ignoring my comments also if you don't agree with me :) Thats quite fair. As long as I also get the same right :)

_______________________________________________
Insulting or Threating Verant employees....
_______________________________________________

who? what? where? when? Does that remotely imply that Sorrun is an employee of Verant if so I give up with EQ now!!

If not which Verant employee are you suggesting I "Insulted" or "Threatened"? Please explain.

Abbi

That Hobbit has been here longer for a long time.

Back off.

Bad form.

And when the cleric uses 10% of his mana on heals - then even if you use 30% of your mana of heals because you are only 1/3 as good as healing - then that still only leaves the cleric 90 mana vs your 70 mana to do other stuff with

The big problem here is not that Druids may be more versatile in this sort of senario. The problem is that melee in the high end game won't need a healer in this sort of senario. If he does need a healer, he's just going to seek out a Shaman over either class.

Improving or not improve Druid heals for a group senario will not change this in the slightest.

What such an improvement might do is permit a druid to heal even without a shaman in places like chardok, upper seb, HS, the trash camps in Velks, etc. Will this really effect Clerics? Not much. Groups with a cleric will seek out more challenging and more rewarding places. Groups wishing to go to those more challenging and rewarding places...will seek out a cleric. There is nothing that says every group in the game must have a cleric healer.

Just so I am clear. Do you think druids need an upgrade that lets them be the main healer in Ssra "exping" on the 2nd floor or where do you draw the limit if any?

2nd floor? No. 1st floor lobby yard trash? Yes. Cazic Thule? No. Jail area of lower Seb? Yes. King area of Lower Seb? Iffy. HS? Yes. Drusilla? No. Chardok? Yes. Herbalist or Korucawhateverhisnameis? No. Dungeon Necro? Iffy, but most likely yes.

Give ya an idea of what I think? Granted understand I'm talking about high end groups. If Aidonx and a group of Royal Norrathian Guards decide they want to try HS at level 51-55, they shouldn't be able to rely on Loegan the Druid to be their primary healer, necessarily, they should have a strong incentive and desire to invite Oath the Cleric. On the otherhand..that's the case as it stands today. Our healing increase needs to be high end.

Thanks for missing the point completely - disdain by ignoring is not hate mongering so please dont try and treat it as such!!

I didn't miss the point. You didn't qualify "disdain" as "disdain by ignoring." At least, not until I called you on it, and you felt it necessary to qualify your intention as such.


As I said Im not suggesting that anybody be stopped from posting on any board - please read before your respond with motherhood and preaching.
I already read your call to arms. I had to sing "La Marseillaise" for years, so I know what your post contained. As for preaching, I'm going to preach when I feel it's necessary because people conveniently forget the posting guidelines.

If you are reffering to casting time I believe that Verant admitted that CH was a mistake (much like the Manastone) and while they would like to remove it they would keep it in the game but never make it more powereful.

Actually Verant, and all of the live servers, saw exactly the effect of letting CH be effected by haste focus effects haste AA would be. Disasterous. The first night the Focus effects were live, CH was effected by the haste ring and was casting at about 8.5 seconds instead of 10. It severely trivialized virtually everything in the game. It was a mistake on par with the Pally silence spell. One they quickly removed the very next day.

Most of the high level guilds on Eci list the Druid joining requirement as level 61

The last time I saw a class requirement listed at 61 was about 2 years or so on Afterlife's page. They were talking about Paladins /chucke.

I hope they make Druids as viable as Paladins now are.

I hope it doesn't take them that long to do so.

Ah you are trying to say that there SHOULD be an arc that brings druid relative healing down from 80% to 64% to something a bit better than 30%? As far as why the chart was done that way ... it is based on when druids get their heals. Yes, it is an omission and so misleading to not take into account when clerics get improvements, but it was certainly not (in my opinion) a deliberate attempt to cook the numbers. {My question here is if clerics are getting better heals, why do your numbers imply that they can heal LESS well after getting a new spell than they could beforehand? } Edit - Leaving this in so later posts make sense but I was not making sense when I wrote that. That is what 2am does to you}

I get very suspicious when anyone downplays the value of CH. I have been 60 for a while now and I know full well that in exp groups it is almost the only spell a cleric ends up using ... let that tank get down low and slap CH on for anything between a 2k and a 5k heal in regular exp group situations.

No, I could not guess that from your saying that the fact that two levels of the earlier range being omitted was a problem in terms of overrepresenting the drop off. I simply look at this as a vast gap pre and post CH, and the modest adjustments to the figures using those spell levels results in doesn't really change anything for me.

I suppose I see your logic.

I just don't agree with it.

But this is all semantics. I don't think your math is less irrefutable than the original posters though I will acknowledge you make some good points regarding hp totals on tanks etc.

I still have to say that while the cumulative hp totals can look impressive for ROTG, they have no real world impact on my need to cast direct heals or the rate at which I have to cast them. That was where we started.

But it just doesn't matter...I will watch how it all plays out. I really am happy that they are at least looking at getting rid of the healing penalty. I am also happy they are looking at giving clerics more variety. We will see where it goes from there.

Oldoaktree


y question here is if clerics are getting better heals, why do your numbers imply that they can heal LESS well after getting a new spell than they could beforehand?

I fear you just dont understand the chart. When clerics get better heals - druids heal less well in comparision. Thats why the numbers are lower at 24 and 34. By omitting these - either by ignorance or ill will - the chart is made to show that druids heal in the 80% range at all level up till CH arrives. This just isnt the case.

In fact - most clerics will tell you that the game is pretty much broken at level 19 to 23 and 29 to 33 because druids and shaman can heal (almost) as well AND sow (+other utility spells). If you agree or disagree that thats the case if up to you. But, it means you wont get clerics to agree that the game was balanced in terms of druids vs clerics healing at the 80% mark.

Note, these numbers dont even take into account that many druids spec in evocation - while 99.9% of all clerics spec in alteration. So, if anything the level 34 number I posted should be even lower.

So, thats the pre-CH numbers where the chart omits valuable data.

Then the post CH numbers assume an ungodly average heal - again either out of ignorance or ill-will producing inflated numbers as a PR stunt. And it seems you and possible other druids have fallen for it - without bothering to check the numbers yourself - leaving that job to me.

Ohh, and I get to be called names for posting factual numbers (not by you mind) - by posters who dont seem able to handle that they cannot refute my arguments with logic so they resort to name calling.

Anyhow - good day to you all - I think I shall rest my case here. I might be back when another issue comes up that needs some actual data to correct misconceptions.

this comparison between rotg and ch is ludicrous. you are comparing a spell that a cleric buys at their guildhall for 20pp to a fairly high end item that it can take a group/raid dozens, if not hundreds, of hours to get.

even if you compare spell to spell, rotg spell is an uncommon drop off lvl 50+ mobs and is lvl 58, plus to keep it up on a whole group for an hour costs 1800 mana.

rotg = 1800 mana = 48000 hp healed maximum
ch = 1800 mana = 47250 hp healed maximum

the difference is that it takes a cleric 57 seconds to do that, it takes the druid 3600.

Kalinn

I am only comparing myself to druids for whome free rotg from their BP is a trivial given - the game below that doesnt hold any meaning for me.

Also, I am not claiming that *free* rotg is a direct competitor to CH. What I am saying (and if you reread my posts I hope that would be clear) is that *free* rotg means that druids can (in many cases) get away with somewhat less direct healing (which is what this debate is about). Not with no direct healing - but with less direct healing.

And (an unrealistic 48000 hp per hour for 0 mana) isnt something to scoff at. Even a realistic 15000 hp per hour for no mana isnt irrelevant - otherwise you wouldnt click the BP or *gasp* use the spell. Sure, in high damage situations its a drop in the bucket - but in middle or low damage situations its very meaningfull - and yet its not at all considered until I brought it up.

Couple things Mikar...

That free rotg, as you keep wanting to not listen to, is mostly used for the druid to heal herself. Otherwise it's adding points to the main tank during combat, and if yer not in an ae fight, your other group members are full health, and the regrowth is doing nothing at all. To be quite honest, until I got the bp, I rarely actually cast the spell, because it was of limited use, and the mana efficiency just wasnt there. I keep it up all the time now, tho, just cause. But as they say about a monk with a fungi vs one without a fungi... "think of it as a dot spell that's on you all the time if yer not wearing one." I actually kinda miss my old es bp which my friend uses, since that was targettable.

The other thing, you say CH isnt improved by AA or focus items at all. Well not really... AA's that increase the number of hit points your tanks have, such as natural durability, increase the efficiency of CH. AA's and focus items that allow you, as a cleric, to save mana and be more efficient about increasing the maximum hp of your group via buffs, also increases the efficiency of CH.

Tia

One thing noone of you mentioned, but in my eyes has a HUGE impact on healing abilities is aggro.

If you have a group where a druid is forced to pump 5 NT in a row on the maintank, your group better evacs, because you're dead. Unless the tank has some of the most uberest aggro weapons, the mob WILL turn on the druid. 5 NR generate way more aggro then 1 CH.

second scenario. you get an add. both mobs beat on the tank. then you heal once.

a cleric starts to heal at, let's say 2 bubs. when the heal hits, the add will go for the cleric. cleric DA's. maintank is full health again and the group can kill 1 mob before DA wears off. tank regains aggro on second mob, group is fine.

as a druid, in such a situation it doesn't matter when you start to heal. as soon as you heal, you will have aggro. tank is healed for 880 (990)hp only. druid gets smashed by the add. tank has no longer a healer and gets smashed, because the single heal didn't help him at all. group gets smashed. group is shouting 'paying for a rez'.

and the druid can't even root the add away, because in higher level zones mobs will summon due to the damage taken by the druids root.

if you have the room you can snarekite the add away, but in most places you don't have the room to do so without getting even more adds.

cu
Turrwin Trickle
Hierophant
Innoruuk

Healing 10% faster and 10% more effeciently with direct heals is an improvement. It's also across the board - all levels, all non-cleric classes and all the spells. This shows they are looking at healing balance wise and if the trend matches what they have done for other areas class specific tweaks should follow.

The CH problem is there for clerics as well. No other heals are viable for them either in a lot of situations. If they are going to leave CH in then they should fill in the huge gap between regular heals and CH.

LOL, i cant even begin to say how silly your analysis of ROTG is, and how you try and factor in the ROTG breastplate of which most Druids dont have. You can break the numbers down all you want to make it seem like its this awesome ability, just like you can for Natures Recovery as well as parse our damage shields as some have, you'l probably come out with some incredible figures. Fact of the matter is, in practical use, we rely on direct healing WAY more than we do our regens, of course you wouldnt know that. Something that heals so slowly over a time where melee are taking 100's of damage by the second really doesnt help too much other than rounding out hp bars while somebody is pulling. Dont kid yourself.

Lets also talk about Shamans. They have ROTG too, altho its another name. They have Torpor thats far better than any heal we have and ony second to CH in mana efficiency, also add in Slow. Now you tell me why your over here whining about a class that doesnt come close to taking groups away from Clerics, when you should be on the Shaman board arguing they should be nerfed. Post all the figures you want, past history is past history. The games changed alot, the mobs have changed, the spells have changed, and even the 'Vision' has changed. To go by percentages of past history when past history was never known to be balanced is silly. As far as i'm concerned, the Druid class has never been balanced.

Its all good tho Mikar. What comes around goes around. I'm sure we'll be right there to exxagerate how Clerics are overpowered once they ask for anything :-)

Yeah, you can't factor clicky items in to this discusion. Or if you do, people will remind you of your clicky Complete Heal breastplate.

Sure, it's nerfed. So what? It's a Complete Heal BP :-)

Broomhilda

You say that "past history is past history".

Fair enough I say - but why then use the chart that shows healing for levels below 50? Thats past history by far when it comes to "tanks taking 100s of damage per sec". Not that any tanks ever take 100s of damage per second exping. The freaking AoW does 800 dps - so no exp mob does "100s" of damage per sec. Again - posting of blatantly false information does nothing. If you meant when it comes to raids - then I already posted several times that I think druids need an upgrade there so why you bash me is beyond me.

Same with the claim that CH landed for 6k hp on average on raids. I provided factual numbers - because what was posted was clearly wrong.

As for the numbers I posted about rotg - I havent seen anyone refute that those are fact - many claim its irrelevant - but I have yet to see anyone refute them as fact.

Shrug - seem your standards only to apply to non-druids - while you readily overlook the clearly false statements made by druids (as rotg heals maybe 2-3k per 2 hours).

Since when is a ROTG BP a given for Druids?

I'm level 60 - where is my ROTG BP????

*smiles*

Just thought I would point out that a ROTG BP is not a "trivial" thing on all servers.

Ummm, i can fight in ME where the Ravenous Beasts double hit for 150's. There are plenty of places where tanks are taking hundreds of damage, ok maybe every few seconds. I'm sorry, didnt mean to exxagerate that extra second or two, lol. And your telling us our regens are that much of a help in that scenario? Get real.

Oh, and i never made a chart comparison, somebody else did. I still think its silly, just like i think removing the healing penalty solving all of our problems is silly.

Nobody has refuted your rotg analysis because your right on. What you dont realize however is its skewed because rotg comes nowhere close in actual effectiveness to what your claiming. I mean you'd think with ROTG being so powerful a Druid could come close to approaching a Shaman and Cleric in ability to heal a group. Fact is Druids come nowhere close in ability to heal a group as clerics and Shaman can. Unbelievable, isnt it? With ROTG being so godly from your breakdown, its hard to believe that ROTG by itself couldnt support a group. I'm shocked myself, because i could've sworn rotg was a Druids form of CH from your data.

Go to the Shaman board and do taht rotg breakdown, i'll bet they'll laugh in your face of the way you portray how powerful it is. Shamans even get special benefit out of it to offset Canni, but i'll still bet they laugh at your implications of how grreat of a healing ability it is. For that matter, why point out rotg in regards to druids, and yet Shamans have RoDK along with Torpor and slow, and you tell me how powerful that is.

Quit pickinig on Druids, because you know damn well we're the least powered in regards to healing by far out of the 3 priest classes.

I'll take the 10 percent with a smile. Isn't gonna make me into some super healer by any means but its more then I've got now and in a 5 hour camp with the number of heals I often cast, It adds up in my book.

When I went from Starfire to Scoriae it was only a 12% upgrade in damage but man oh man was I happy about it ( ok sure, I like Wildfire a whole lot better ).

As was posted earlier in this thread "Baby Steps".

Sildan Stormrunner
Cazic Thule

In reading this thread, I see lots of interesting discussion on both sides of the issue.

I see little argument over the fact that in the end game druids heal _substantially_ worse than clerics. There is some debate about precisely how much worse it is, but the core fact remains certain.

The original statement that the removal of the penalty is not akin to balance is correct imo. It is by all means a beneficial change, but nothing on the order of effecting a meaningful difference.

so no exp mob does "100s" of damage per sec. Again - posting of blatantly false information does nothing.

Expect me to believe that those XP mobs quadding for 200-300+ aren't dishout out hundreds of DPS? A player melee can dish out around 100-150 dps and mobs hit alot harder than we do...

"Go out, dust Sorrun off..."

And give up my paladin just when he is starting to come into his own? Hell maybe I should focus on him and end up tanking for all of you, heal you, rez you, buff you and then turn around and kick the mobs @#%$...

:)

Couldnt resist... i will think about it but careful what you wish for... Sorrun with actual 60ish knowledge to back up his claims could become a very bad apple at the Grove... :)

Turrwin Trickle, that is important and I agree about the aggro, I have that problem as soon as I am trying to be Main Healer in a raid group, need to keep my members as low as I dare to not get summoned.
Just healing AE damage can get me summoned if it is an AE mob like the Spiroc Lord where a MT cant really keep aggro that long before he gets DT. if it is a non DT'ing mob it is much easier though.
A Group Heal spell will have the same problem. A group regen, like Group Natures Recovery would be good though.

Ardur Iskall

Hey Sorrun, I think you'd be on my turf at that point ;)

Fairweather Pure

"Sorrun with actual 60ish knowledge to back up his claims could become a very bad apple at the Grove"


y bet is you'll finally come to the realization of just how broken we are. Just remember you only experienced the lvls of a Druid where we were extremely overpowered(below 50). So your perspective on 50+ Druids has to be abit skewed from your experiences at <50 because things are completely different.

Couldnt resist... i will think about it but careful what you wish for... Sorrun with actual 60ish knowledge to back up his claims could become a very bad apple at the Grove... :)

I'd offer to help you level up to sixty, but you play on a different server. I agree with those who think you would have a change in perspective, and would note that for some reason you have "retired" Sorrun. I have to think he can't be all the fun you're making him out to be, or you would still be playing him.

- Chronomis

Couldnt resist... i will think about it but careful what you wish for... Sorrun with actual 60ish knowledge to back up his claims could become a very bad apple at the Grove... :)

If young Sorrun can be turned, a powerful ally he would make.

Yes my Master.

Mikar:

Yes I miswrote/misthought last night but that is what happens at 2am lol. I threw that sentence in at the end and was thinking more about sleep than what I was writing. I really do "get" the chart no matter what I say in a sleep deprived state.

Yes relative healing should go down with new cleric spells being introduced. However, that means pre CH, at various levels relative healing bounces up and down between 65 and 85% for druids (it is not consistent it jumps around). After CH, it drops to 20 to 30%

At any rate the point of the chart is the cliff that relative healing falls off when CH is introduced.

Splitting hairs about what happens for the month or three that one passes through the low levels is kind of fruitless.

The huge drop off is there no matter what levels you add in.

And the premise that ROTG saves actual casts of heal spells is also false. I wish it were true but you need to look at the numbers mob by mob to have it make sense. Again, if a mob does 2500hp of dmg and the tank regens 150 hp, it is not saving the druid 2 casts of NT. It is unlikely to be the make or break of deciding to top of the tank with one last heal.

It is a benefit, but it really does not play...at all...in how many direct heals a druid casts in an exp grind. Think of it instead as a slight decrease in the amount of dmg a mob does and you would be closer to the truth. Again if a mob has DPS of 40, then the druid HPS from ROTG of 2.5 is not really a measureable benefit. Think what happens when those DPS figures go up.

I base my perspective on my own experience. In an experience group, pulls are constant. The ONLY member of the group relying on regen to heal is me. I can't take that risk with anyone else (unless it is a med break).

And again...since you are looking at the game "at this level," I have to remind you that while druids have a clicky ROTG which we love, clerics have a clicky CH...not a perfect CH, but it is a clicky.

I have to say that CH is the most broken spell in the game. At 39 a cleric gets a heal that only gets better and better as they, and the ones they heal, level up. At 60 CH will still be mem'd and used frequently. Why is it one class should hold "the key" to practicaly any healing situation? I cannot understand how a cleric could come here and argue that CH isn't broken and that they should continue to the be the ONLY class that can heal so efficently.

On the shaman side I can see the error of always argueing that they are much better off than druids because of torpor. It is a rare spell and hard to get. But tell me this... What is the healing savings of being able to reduce a mobs attack speed by 50% or 75%? How many hps of healing savings does that equate to? Lets say the mob hits someone for 300hps every round. Doesn't slowing that mobs attack speed to 150hps per round of battle equate to a heal savings of 150hps? Doesn't that add up of the full extent of the battle to huge amounts of "indirect" healing?

Come on now, for the good of the game and all those people that play, WHEN YOU ARE NOT ON MR. CLERIC, the other preist classes should be able to fill in for you. Even if it takes two of us to do so. But it shouldn't take more than 2 druids to accomplish the same thing 1 cleric can. I am just tired of waiting on clerics (and chanters for that matter) to log on so the guild/raid/group can accomplish what we are after.

I feel the need to state again. No single class should ever be the sole solution to a problem facing the player base. I can't think of another example in any other facet of the game(besides CC and the enchanter) that is as one sided. You are too "ideal" and I know you are scared of the rest of us being brought up from "lousy" to "acceptable" even though that wouldn't effect your "ideal" standing at all.

Europa

Not to be rude Sorron, but I ignore yours and all other input from druids under level 59. Only way I can handle this bored.

I don't comment on the effects of lesser succor, new newbi quests, and other things that have zero effect on me and what I do when I play EQ. Would be nice for others to do the same.

Heck if we're still comparing clicky healing... lets not forget cleric quest/pog legs! Clicky word of health, 12 second cast time. Here come the numbers!

12 second cast time, 100 health per party member... potentially 600 health per cast. 3000 health per minute. Why thats 180,000 hp's healed per hour, for free!

Or, to look at it another way, 100 health per 12seconds = 50 health per tick! Compare that to the rotg bp, which provides a measley 15hp per tick.

Heck why do clerics even cast healing spells at all with free healing power like that?!

Tia

PS If you missed it, that was sarcasm.

CH is overpowered, but almost in a fundamental way at this point. The end game of eq undeniably pivots on the axis of CH and reviniscence.

I think the point of this thread has been debate over whether druid direct heals are not up to par. The value of res, ch, and ageo is basically unquestioned. They are each things that the upper game of eq could not function without.

Hopefully, the question of whether balance is needed will soon be put to rest. Internal bickering does not help present a unified front, which I feel would be needed to effect change.

I was kind of sad the first time I read this to not see every druid saying, "yes, I agree this change is only a baby step to the balance we need."

Tiana

The legs are quite handy - and I use them myself when possible.

However, your analysis neglects to include casting time.

The rotg BP is x sec but lasts 15 mins.
The legs are 12 sec and last 12 sec so to speak.

That means that the cleric 1) loses alot of med time (except on a horse where the legs shine) - 2) that its alot harder to catch people in range - 3) Clicking legs means you dont get to nuke .. and thats an important part of exping ;)

So, clicking the cleric legs actually cost 40 mana in lost med time. So, if the heal lands on 3 people (that need it) - you get 315 hp/40 mana or ~8 hp/mana. Note, how my calculations with rotg has generally only counted on 2 people on average benifitting from it - so lets not go into the cases where all 6 people get/need the healing.

Absolutely worthwhile, yes - but nowhere near the power of the free rotg - simply due to the difference in duration.

I just dont like the wording. They are acting like it is a big deal.

They should state that after a breif test it will move to the live servers. More testing on other changes to follow.

An extra 80 hp to sup heal is not going to impact the game balance at all. At lvl 53 that is one hit, less than a round.

It seems they are listening but the wording leads me to belive all that much is not on the way. I will wait it out for a while.

Free rotg from a druid BP already heals almosts as well as a cleric in an exp group - because exp groups dont need much healing.

Ok, obviously not quite true - but also not entirely false.

6 people in HS - exping + killing Drusilla. War, Rog, Wiz, Shm, Bard and Clr.

In 103 mins I cast 14 CHs, 14 CEs and 3 Dls - and not because the shaman was healing - though the bard was singing Cantata some of the time. If we had not killed Drusilla but merely been exping I would have healed *half* that (and nuked even more).

Being very generous each CH did 4k (not all of them were on the warrior - and many of them only to top him off before a pull).

So, lets say I healed 80k worth - or 80 hp/tick. Rotg *free* from a BP is 90 hp/tick if everyone are hurt - 45 per tick if only 3 in your group are hurt. If you cannot exp in a way to have 3 people hurt I would say you need to pull faster .

Not as usefull by far as direct healing obviously - but then again I used 10k mana doing it vs 0 mana for BP regrowth - so that 10k mana does go a way when it comes to direct healing the tank.

Dont understimate that free click when exping - if you set up right it heals ALOT.

Then - I didnt have Grp Thorns either - and when you pull 4-8 mobs at a time because thats faster Thorns really add up. On the other side I may have used DA once - and in HS rezzing could be a problem.

Anyhow - I submit humbly that druids dont lack much if anything when it comes to exp groups - you are good at one sort of groups clerics are good at another and shaman as just gods when it comes to exp groups - but druids could use some sort of upgrade when it comes to raids. The problem is how to make such an upgrade without it spilling over too heavily into exp groups - in particular into the cleric "slot".

Feel free to disagree


Ok, using your "clicky BP" comparison....

Don't forget to compair a druid with a BP to a Cleric with A Donal's.

I'll preface this a bit. Since you are comparing "potential HP healed" with a druids BP I will compare "potential HP healed" with a Cleric BP. I say potential because for a druid BP to heal what you say it does, all party members must be constantly taking low amounts of damage (at least 15 hp per tick) for the regen to heal.

In an EXP group, a cleric aggresively using the Donal's BP on two (and only two) warriors in the group can cast the free CH 14 times per target in 103 minutes. (that's based on the 7 minutes before it can be cast again) Using your base of 4000 hp per heal, you would potentially heal 112K HP in the same time that the Druid BP healed 80k. That is if you only used it on two party members.

Ok, I know, it's not a realistic example. Then again, niether is the druid bp doing 80k in the same amount of time.

I point this out only to illustrate how using clickies (especially rare clickies) to demonstrate class balance is not what you should be doing

Ah but Mikar, now you are the one that is bringing in "real world circumstances" that reduce the actual effectiveness of the free healing from the clicky pants, saying that in theory yes the healing is fantastic, however in practice they are of limited and specialized use.

Sound familiar?

Tia

Expect me to believe that those XP mobs quadding for 200-300+ aren't dishout out hundreds of DPS? A player melee can dish out around 100-150 dps and mobs hit alot harder than we do...

Go dust off your warrior and do some parsing of xp mobs. BTW, what xp mobs quad again?

Centis in ME and AR hit me on average for about 60. They hit me about 45% of the time. They have a standard 1.8 delay. That's about 1 swing every 0.9 seconds and I get hit about 45% of the time, or every 2 seconds for 60 damage. That's 30 DPS. If you think my gear is anything special, click the link in my sig and be disabused of that notion. ;)

What xp mobs are you fighting? Gwan? Seriously. What xp mobs do you fight that quad for 200-300? Xenovorash quads, and his max hit is 220. He also happens to be the hardest fight in the monk epic. Myconids have a max hit of 145, and they don't quad. Sebilite juggernauts have a max of 177, and they don't quad.

"Players" don't dish out around 100-150 DPS. The very best equipped rogues in the game do. The very best equipped monks will do around 100-120. Fully hasted, with a 39/45 2 hander, high 200's STR, and a couple of +atk buffs, I do around 40 DPS against xp mobs.

Seriously...what xp mobs quad for 200-300?


As far as RoTG. No it isn't a heal. It would take alot of effort and a perfect scenario to use it as your groups only healing. It can be done, but is hardly a representative scenario. On the other hand, when used wisely, it can lower the amount of direct healing that needs to done significantly. That is a much more common scenario.

Hmm, I specifically operated with the druid BP only healing 3 people on average - not all 6. So, I already did bring in the "real world circumstances" as you so name it. As I also stated - "Ok, obviously not quite true - but also not entirely false" - so indeed my post was an exaggeration.

If you read my later post you will notice that I talk about keeping just 2 people on averaged healed with rotg - in which case its still quite usefull.

It was you who failed to do the same when it came to the cleric legs - which if you use 2 people healed on average are worse than using CE - but I used 3 people on average not to make it look useless because its not.

So, no, it doesnt sounds familiar. Not at all infact.

As for the Donals BP - thats another story I freely admit. Its also alot more rare though (un)fortunately.

Graal, even 30dps is more of a healing strain than it might seem. Healing 30dps using a 2.2 ratio heal requires 30/2.2 = 13.54 mana regenerated per second to keep up with (81 mana/tick). Note that that mana must come in addition to any mana required for other purposes, such as buffs, and horseless druids aren't medding while casting. On the bright side, groups don't have 100% uptime, so the 30dps isn't continual and more time is typically spent medding than fighting.

Here's some information gleaned from using YALP to parse a log file of my rogue. I'm not providing greatly detailed data, but this should give some idea of druid healing prior to level sixty.

elee: A single 56 rogue, roughly 1000ac before buffs, epic weapon, 3 points of regen from AA.
Healer: A single 54 druid using Regrowth and Superior Healing.
ob: Quag Maelstrom. Old world mob (but might be considered a Kunark mob since he was added for the bard epic) who is level 45 every time and hits for a maximum of 117.

Buffs in use on the "tank": Skin Like Nature, Storm Strength, Regrowth, Pack Wolfform, and Shield of Thorns.

Can the druid keep up with healing and buffs in this easy situation? The answer is a qualified yes. Healing for the fight is no problem. But there is downtime created in the sense that the druid would run out of mana after two to four fights if it were possible to continuously pull Quag. This is despite the fact that the rogue manages to proc a 35% slow before the halfway point in most fights.

Ok, 15 fights or so, and the damage output of the rogue is around 40dps (best 44.51, worst 35.51). Remember, he's tanking so there's not a whole lot of backstabbing going on except at the end of the fight. The damage from the damage shield is included, but the rogue's high evasion tends to reduce the value of the damage shield as compared to a true tank. The typical fight lasts for around 200 seconds.

Now for the surprise. Remember that the druid would eventually run out of mana if this mob were being continually pulled. So, what is the DPS of this mob that's eventually going to run the druid out of mana if he's pulled without a break? Interestingly, he averages only around 11 dps according to my logs (best 17.16, worst 6.85).

I won't claim this is the greatest example. But the data is actually captured from real logs, and has some interesting implications.

- Chronomis

A breakdown of healing with a 60 druid as main healer, a 60 paladin as tank, and a 60 ranger as damage dealer fighting in ME or AR against centis. The centis do about 30 DPS. The fights would last a little less than 2 minutes (depends on damage output from druid). The ranger takes about 1/4 of the damage, with the paladin taking the rest. Healing comes from RoTG on both melees, NR on the paladin, and chloroblast to make up the difference.

1800 total damage per minute @ 30 DPS
1300 DPM - paladin
500 DPM - ranger

RoTG 150 HPM
NR 300 HPM
natural regen of 10 HPM

460 HPM - paladin
160 HPM - ranger

Notice that NR+RoTG heal about 1/3 of the damage we are taking, and RoTG is only being counted on 2 people. If we wanted to, we could cast NR on both the paladin and the ranger and share the tanking. That would be even more efficient. Then NR and RoTG would be healing half of the damage taken.

I'm actually taking damage for about 2/3 of the time, then 1/3 of time is mob runtime/pull time before I start tanking the next. Factor in the dead time and get:

866 DPM - paladin
333 DPM - ranger

Now factor in the 6 mana a second the hybrids are getting from PoTG. That allows the paladin to heal 700 damage with a CC every 3.75 minutes, and lets the ranger heal 270 damage with greater heal every 2.5 minutes. That is just mana regen from PoTG/cabbage mind you.

That adds 108 HPM from the ranger and 186 HPM from the paladin for a total of 294 HPM that all comes as a direct result of PoTG mana regen. If we apply that evenly to both the ranger and the paladin, we get:

460 HPM + 147 HPM = 607 HPM - paladin
160 HPM + 147 HPM = 307 HPM - ranger

That leaves us taking

259 DPM
26 DPM

To do the healing that I am taking so far costs 84 mana a minute for NR, not counting spec or focus and 40 mana a minute for RoTG (unless its free). I still have 259 DPM to heal, which means 1 chloroblast every 1.5 minutes for 116 mana a minute. That's 240 mana a minute total. With free RoTG it is 200 mana a minute.

The cost of the rangers RoTG has already been counted in the above. He is losing 26 HPM so needs 1 chloroblast every 14.8 minutes for 12 mana a minute.

Sum of all mana used to heal is 252 mana per minute, or 212 mana a minute with free RoTG. This assumes no specialization and no focus. A druid with no buffs other than PoTG/cabbage, no mana regen AAs, and no FT meds back 310 mana a minute. The druid is casting about 1 spell per minute, so he is going to lose some med time. Let's say he regens 280 mana a tick back.

That is enough to pull constantly and still have time to right click epic for mana free dot/snare and right click bracer for dot once in a while.

Add in the effects of a 10% mana reduction focus item and the druid is spending 227 mana a minute (190 with free RoTG). If you assume spec is going to reduce mana cost by 10% on average (I don't know the percentages) that makes mana usage 204 MPM (171 with free RoTG). That is 76-109 extra mana a minute. With free RoTG 40% of the mana the druid regenerates is available for things other than healing. without it, only 27% of the total mana is available. That is a big difference.


If you throw one more melee into the group to take damage every now and then, it gets even easier. Make that other melee a hybrid and the effect of PoTG/cabbage makes that melee work to your advantage even more. Druids stack really well with hybrids.

Isn't there a druid only self buff that stacks with cabbage that gives mana regen?


Chronomis that was becuase of slow. On slowed xp mobs I generally take 5-8 DPM. If the ranger above was using earthcaller, the druid would have to use chloroblast much less often.

Chronomis that was becuase of slow. On slowed xp mobs I generally take 5-8 DPM. If the ranger above was using earthcaller, the druid would have to use chloroblast much less often.

Actually, the high end damage I cited was likely a case where slow didn't take or took so late in the fight that it was irrelevant. So there are a few fights there where slow wasn't involved. The high variability in the dps of the mob is, in fact, largely attributable to whether the slow took effect early in the fight, late in the fight, or not at all.

y rogue's slow is 35%. This is not your shammy's slow, except in the sense that it's a low level shaman spell. It's not even a ranger's slow (40%). With my slow you would definitely be taking more than 5-8 dps on a mob that normally dishes out 30 dps. You would be taking 30*0.65 = 19.5 dps, assuming it proc'ed almost immediately and was not resisted.

I note that in your group you as a paladin are supplementing the healing. Fair enough... That's a realistic group. But it's also a group where the druid has significant healing assistance, which somewhat invalidates it if the question is "Are druids effective healers?" Also, in my situation regens are less valuable than in yours because they work better the more the damage is spread out. That's particularly true in your group as two people is the ideal number of people (indeed, the maximum number of people) to spread Nature's Recovery over, and one of the characters isn't taking enough damage but what RoTG+NR equals most of his healing need, yet he is taking enough to reduce the healing burden on the person who needs Chloroblast. Of course, my regen also costs mana instead of coming free from a BP, and NR isn't available.

The "druid can't keep up with the damage indefinitely" applies to an alteration spec'ed druid in this case, with maximum spec, so while I didn't factor in spec in my mana calculation, it is factored in in whether my druid can keep up or not. It's somewhat of a testament to my abandonment of my druid as my main that I switched his spec from evocation to alteration so he could better support my rogue, as well as abandoning the druid epic with only three drops remaining (neither of them a Jade Reaver or a VS stone) and got my rogue's epic from scratch instead.

The fights would last a little less than 2 minutes (depends on damage output from druid).

ost druids that are strained to keep up with heals have small damage output. If you look at it in terms of how many seconds shorter the fight was and thus how much healing mana was saved, you'll likely find that Drones of Doom from ES arms or a Velious bracer doesn't even justify the loss of med time in your group. The epic may, if it's not resisted, but it's not going to be a major factor. I wouldn't factor in druid damage in an examination of a druid's healing potential.

- Chronomis

I think backup healers just need a heal that scales like Cheal does. i.e a hheal (half heal) or a qheal (quarter heal). Problem is with mudflation any heal limited by hit points is going to eventually be useless.

Centis in ME and AR hit me on average for about 60

Centis are the frogloks of Luclin..they are wusses.

What xp mobs are you fighting? Gwan? Seriously. What xp mobs do you fight that quad for 200-300? Xenovorash quads, and his max hit is 220

Neither of those two mobs require more than a single group..and it doesn't even need to be a perfectly balanced group.

What xp mobs do you fight that quad for 200-300?

Hmm..I could be incorrect, but I'm thinking that at least some of the yard trash in Ssrae and CT are quadding. I know they are hitting in the 200-300 range. If a mob isn't hitting me for 150+ I don't consider it a threat in a group, I can sit there and tank it long enough for a half asleep tank to pull it off me.

Myconids have a max hit of 145, and they don't quad. Sebilite juggernauts have a max of 177, and they don't quad.

Both very easy Xp camps for a single group (though having a monk in Juggs is highly suggested, damn fake wall room).

Players" don't dish out around 100-150 DPS.

Hmm..I don't have access to the DPS calculations some of the melee did from my old guild, but the rogues were doing closer to 150 than they were to 100, the rangers were easily over 100. I believe the monks were as well. The warriors were probably sub-100 because of dying and defensive, I truly don't recall.

Fully hasted, with a 39/45 2 hander, high 200's STR, and a couple of +atk buffs, I do around 40 DPS against xp mobs.

No offense, but 39/45 is pretty far behind the groups I'm used to. My warrior who is now one of twink, has the 42/43 2 hander from Dain because my guildies couldn't use it.

Seriously...what xp mobs quad for 200-300?

As I said, perhaps I'm wrong about the quadding, I kinda suspect I'm not though, hard for me tell when I get aggro, I just see a bunch of hits till the tank gets aggro off me again.

On the other hand, when used wisely, it can lower the amount of direct healing that needs to done significantly.

Only in senarios where the mob is missing the MT a whole lot or not swinging often. Fungro and Chardok and to a lesser degree the mines in Ssrae and centi in Akheva, if a monk or paladin is tanking. But then again, its obvious that we're not hunting with the same kind of groups...so a druid in one of your groups probably would end up having more difficulty keeping the monk or paladin tanking for your group.

Aiddon, I've spent my last play sessions as tank in CT. The mobs there generally have a max of 200 or so, and they definitely don't quad, at least not the ones I fought. They happen to have very high attack which makes a big difference, but that's another story.

I realize that my gear isn't uber. That was the point. I'm a very, very averagely equipped paladin. If an average druid can handle healing on an average tank in a pretty average group fighting average mobs, what does that say?

After the last few nights, I would say without hesitation that a druid would have a hard as hell time keeping up with the damage output in CT, if they even could. We would definitely have much more downtime with a druid as healer. Maybe it should be that way. Maybe there should be a few zones where a cleric is needed if you want decent xp. Only ones I can think of are Ssra and CT. A druid can be main healer just about everywhere else.

You call myconids and juggs "very easy camps". I bet the average player out there (which would be the vast majority) wouldn't agree to that. Centis are indeed the frogs of luclin, and they are indeed wusses. ;) They also happen to be a very common target for xp groups. So basically what you are saying is that unless the mobs are really hard, it doesn't count?

ost players would consider a mob that quads for 200-300 a raid level mob, not an xp mob. I sure as hell wouldn't go get xp from a level 55 mob that quads when I can get essentially the same xp from a level 55 mob that doesn't quad for 200-300. Makes sense right?

Seems Mikar has been trying to put words in my mouth while I was away. If he had bothered to read my initial post several weeks ago where I explained the basis for the intervals I picked, he would understand that I wasn't trying to hide anything. Sorry, Mikar.

First, I'm sure we all know that except for our first healing spell, druids generally get the same healing spell as clerics, except several levels later. Clerics of the same level as druids when druids get their healing spells still heal more than druids because of the 15% advantage AND also because our earlier healing spells gradually healed for more damage with level (to a cap).

Overall, the relative percentage fluctuated with each level, depending on who just got a new healing spell. Clerics would jump up when they would get a new spell, and druids would jump up about 5 levels later when they got the same spell.

When I put together a short table here, I made it clear that I chose the intervals at which druids got their new healing spells. This set a upper boundary on the relative power of druids compared to clerics, and established a ne plus ultra. For example, as anyone reading my later posts has seen, I argue against druids getting CH because this would put druids at 100% (or very close to it), when druids have never been that high.

Ironically, Mikar's numbers support my thesis, which has nothing to do with a "trend." My thesis is that druids, up until clerics got CH, were in a certain % range on the healing power chart, and that at least in the high level game, druids ought to be restored to that same relative level. The numbers Mikar posted are numbers that I would be happy to be restored to, and that the suggestions I have made would restore us to.

This latter point is another reason for looking at the levels were druids get their "catch up" spells. The whole point of this argument is for druids to get a "catch up" spell or two at level 60 to restore druids to the "same relative position" vis a vis clerics.

What "same relative position"? Why, the same relative position that existed when druids got each "catch up" spell before, of course. And that's exactly what my chart shows.

Might as well address the 10% penalty while I'm at it.

Back when we were discussing the petition, the argument was that there were (or could be) three basic causes of the druid healing problem at high levels.

1. Our heals didn't keep up with increasing tank HPs.
2. Our heals didn't keep up with higher and faster mob damage.
3. Our heals couldn't do much when fighting mobs with AoE damage.

At the time, I looked at the first (and only the first) issue above. I asked for input as to typical tank HP from 40 to 60, and received sufficient responses to come up with a generally-agreed upon hp progression.

Then, I applied the druid healing spells available. This showed that our heals hadn't kept up with tank HPs, but that the fall-off wasn't that great. Removal of the 10% penalty wouldn't restore all of the fall-off, but would bring us to within a few percentage points. Of course, removal of the 10% penalty wouldn't do very much against the much higher mob DPS, or AoE damage, seen in raids.

In other words, what I showed is that the increase in tank HPs on raids was a very minor contributor to the druid healing problem on raids, and that the 10% penalty removal would be a good first (but minor) step.

Note that there was no comparison to clerics or shaman involved.

Scirocco

I think the problem is that whenever druids did "catch up" to clerics - it made for an imbalance where clerics were largely unwanted. When clerics again got a *better* heal there was balance again.

Atleast many clerics felt it nearly impossible to get a group during the levels of 19-23 and 29-33 precisely because druids/shaman got too close in healing power while also having their other spells - most groups simply wanted a healer *with* sow.

So, for clerics the balanced state wasnt when druids catch up - but when clerics surged ahead. Indeed, most clerics would find that to be not just the balanced state but the natural state.

Since we obviously disagree on that very central point - namely when there was balance - one might think we should find it hard to agree overall - but I dont think we do. I merely pointed out that your chart vastly exaggerated the "truth" as I see it including the inflated numbers for average CHs - not that your conclusions that druids need a better heal is incorrect.

Its the degree we disagree about so to speak.

Anyhow - how does the cumulative effect of AA skills (HG, HA), focus items (IH, MP) and the removal of the penalty change your perspective? None of these change CH (except in rare cases vs mobs that cast balance) - yet actually make NT 50% better. Obviously, this isnt for free - but clerics dont have an "expensive" option to similarly improve.

Huh? Clerics have the same exact options to improve. They can get HA/HG/focus items just like druids. However, Healing Adept is bugged right now, anyway, and doesnt seem to stack with improved healing ;p. In addition, spell casting reinforcement mastery makes celestial elixir quite an amazing spell.

Faene

HA/HG/MP/IH dont do anything for CH - and the entire comparison made is vs CH.

The druid board cannot on the one hand *only* compare to CH pretending thats all clerics use - and then on the other hand claim that clerics get anything from HA/HG/MP/IH.

HA/HG/MP/IH dont do anything for CH - and the entire comparison made is vs CH.

The druid board cannot on the one hand *only* compare to CH pretending thats all clerics use - and then on the other hand claim that clerics get anything from HA/HG/MP/IH.


No, there are simply TWO different lines of reasoning for the same argument. I don't think CH is perceived by many as the sole reason clerics have a monopoly on group/raid healing.

The clerical healing spell line is itself superior to a signifcant degree than the druidic healing spell line, considering the exact heal:mana ratios. For instance, clerics don't commonly cast Superior Heal after they've scribe more efficient alternatives; druids don't have any alternatives for mana efficiency until 60th level.

Here's one of the points you're missing:
Because AA enhancement is based upon percentage, the gap would widen when both Sample_Cleric and Sample_Druid have used the same number of AA points towards enhancing heals; and the gap is even greater when AA enhancement is applied to the cleric's already-more-efficient spell choices.

Complete Heal is the cleric's "best" direct heal, so for comparison purposes, it is fair to hold that spell up to the druid's "best" direct heal (even ignoring the fact that a cleric's best direct heal comes at level 39, and a druid's at 60).

Complete Heal, in practice, is currently a 100% heal. In other words: while the spell techically has a maximum benefit, there is currently no situation where this spell will not restore any player character to full health. Therefore, the spell's exemption from AA enhancement is irrelevant. Sure, you could technically have a 110% heal, but again for practical comparison, it's akin to casting a 600-point heal on a player who only needs 540 hp to be full health.

~Firemynd

The comparison I did was not a complete, overall look at the relative healing power of clerics and druids. I looked purely at the best direct healing spell each has. No specialization. No AA skills. No focus items. No other spells. I even let CH get by with looking at the average hp healed, when it is clear that the critical element of CH is that it does a 6000 to 7000+ hp several times during a raid when needed.

Now, if you want to look at the bigger picture, let's consider the elements that would go into it.

1. CH regularly heals for 6000 to 7000+ hp on high level raids. An "average" heal of 3000 hp (or whatever) just won't cut it. [- Druid %]

2. Clerics get group heals. Druids don't. [- Druid %]

3. Clerics get good HoTs. Druids get NR and regens, which heal over much longer times and for lesser amounts per tick. [- Druid %]

4. Clerics get AoE healing. Druid's don't. [- Druid %]

5. Clerics and druids both get the ability to specialize in alteration and AA healing skills. While the AA skills will after non-CH spells, CH remains unaffected (not that adding 10% to a complete heal means anything). However, since Nature's Touch will gain an additional 10% or so, this translates to about a 2% to 4% boost on the relative power scale using CH as the top. [+ Druid %]


So, looking at the above qualitatively, you can see that the numbers I was using were giving clerics the benefit of the doubt and overestimating the relative healing power of a level 60 druid to a level
60 cleric. If you look at the big picture, cleric healing power just makes druid healing power even more miserable.

The changes listed on the summary thread here would put druids back in the 50% to 60% range, in my opinion. Which is still lower than where we were, but is a lot better than the current situation. If a druid then wants to invest the AA points, he or she can probably get to the 60% to 70% range, which is fairly decent.
4.

Your 2 and 4 are the same - unless you think clerics get true AoE heals in which case I wish I knew how.

For 3 - druids can actually MGB RotG - clerics have nothing similar.

Still, CE is a better spell than NR + RotG - no doubt about that - but because CH is generally "better" than CE while NT + RotG is "better" than NT it doesnt weight in by much - as you are already comparing the best cleric heal to the worst druid heal.

5 - NT goes up with 50% with AA, Focus and removal of the penalty - not just the 10% you list. AA alone is 21% (HG3 + HA3).

6 people in HS - exping + killing Drusilla. War, Rog, Wiz, Shm, Bard and Clr.

In 103 mins I cast 14 CHs, 14 CEs and 3 Dls - and not because the shaman was healing - though the bard was singing Cantata some of the time. If we had not killed Drusilla but merely been exping I would have healed *half* that (and nuked even more).

Being very generous each CH did 4k (not all of them were on the warrior - and many of them only to top him off before a pull).


What Mikar neglects to mention, is that our guild (yep, we're guildmates) has extremely good equipment (The only "old world" mobs we really bother with is AoW and Tunare, and we're currently in the Luclin endgame (damn Emp just wont die)). I think our top warrior has 5400 Hp unbuffed, prolly around 7,3k buffed (in that area I think)

So this pretty little calculation is done with Uber gear people, in an old world (2 expansions old) dungeon where the mobs have much less HP and much lower DPS than the stuff we're seeing on luclin.

So please Mikar, when you make the following statement:


Give me a break here - the entire table is absolute bogus and out of touch with reality - quite possibly well know by the author - to yield maximum inpact for the argumentation that druids are broken.


You are guilty of doing the exact same thing.

And when you make a comment like this:


To further show that the table posted is bogus and manipulative I submit two missing spell levels


And then make a post basing your information on a VERY skewed setup (IE, very capable players with top end gear in an old world dungeon) you are being manipulative yourself.

Furthermore you have a Shaman in your group, which reduces DPS by 75 percent. No wonder you don't need to heal a whole friggin lot in a dungeon that's been in the game for 2 years.
One of the points of the Druid community is that we don't have anything that brings us even close to being as effecient as Clerics or Shamans if we are the ONLY healers in the group. 2 Druids cannot make up for 1 shaman.


So, lets say I healed 80k worth - or 80 hp/tick. Rotg *free* from a BP is 90 hp/tick if everyone are hurt - 45 per tick if only 3 in your group are hurt. If you cannot exp in a way to have 3 people hurt I would say you need to pull faster .

Not as usefull by far as direct healing obviously - but then again I used 10k mana doing it vs 0 mana for BP regrowth - so that 10k mana does go a way when it comes to direct healing the tank.

Dont understimate that free click when exping - if you set up right it heals ALOT.


I call bull**** on this statement. If Druids are the only healers, the ONLY 1 you can allow to stay at 4 bubs or lower when a pull begins, is the warrior. NT heals 880 points in 5,5 seconds. For a Chanter with bad aggro, you simply do not have the time to heal, if they are not FH when the fight begins. The same is ofcourse true with the rest of the caster classes in the group. And because I know how disciplined our guildies are, fluke aggro happens rarely in XP-groups, so I would venture that the regen does not do anywhere near would you describe. Hell, our warriors (and other melee's) with Dain rings click off RotG the second it lands on them. Thus most of the time people WILL be full health with Druids in their group, as long as the Druid can keep up (IE has mana). Which isn't very long, and then it's all over.

Furthermore you are forgetting (or leaving out) one VERY important detail. Namely the amount of aggroing that NT causes. Druid's simply cannot afford to have to heal someone too often in a fight, because NT's aggro is so damn high (much much higher than CH if you look at points healed compared to aggro amount). That's one more reason that Druids have to have people at full health when pulls are inc.

So no, RotG is nowhere near what you would like to see it at.


Then - I didnt have Grp Thorns either - and when you pull 4-8 mobs at a time because thats faster Thorns really add up. On the other side I may have used DA once - and in HS rezzing could be a problem.


I call BS again, was the chanter only there to haste and C3? If you get any noticeable amount of damage out of an 8 pull before the chanter messes, you would soon be sitting in Nexus waiting for a port.
Besides, I don't know any Druids who uses group thorns at all, I know for a fact you have not seen me use it. Bad pulls (4-8) should be messed ASAP.


Anyhow - I submit humbly that druids dont lack much if anything when it comes to exp groups - you are good at one sort of groups clerics are good at another and shaman as just gods when it comes to exp groups - but druids could use some sort of upgrade when it comes to raids. The problem is how to make such an upgrade without it spilling over too heavily into exp groups - in particular into the cleric "slot".


Druids are good in groups as nukers, they are good on raids as nukers. We are not good healers in either setup. The class was intended as a priest class, second in healing only to the cleric. That is not the case anymore. Shamans are by far superior due to their slows. Paladins are probably not better, but getting very close due to their group heal (which in your senario Mikar, must be more effecient since alot of members in the group are getting hurt...). Defininately better than Druids when it comes to AE's (NToV, some Ssra mobs etc.).

Hi Zeel

The shaman didnt slow - we told him just to nuke - atleast untill we got close to Drusilla. Waste of time slowing crappy exp mobs in HS - they die so fast anyway. Its only their HT that does any dmg really and slow doesnt help with that.

There was no enchanter - but the bard did mez a bit on the larger pulls. We still rarely had less then 3 unmezzed mobs though - again, their melee is so low.

Rotg - I dont see why you cannot have 2 melee not be full health on average. Healing someone to full is pretty much a waste of good regen. Dain Ring - true, I forgot about that - definitely lowers the use of rotg.

Druid aggro - I agree - thats a problem. Less aggro on heals + DA is a pretty important cleric tool.

And yes - I look at well equipped people - I believe I have stated that in several posts - because thats the game I play.

Finally, I think druids do better with a pally/SK tank - while clerics do better with a warrior tank. The added self-healing from the pal/sk is pretty much wasted with a cleric - while it comes in very handy with a druid. And not all groups should need warrior tanks - just like not all groups should need cleric healers.

aybe druids just "need" a pal/sk tank (who benifits from PotG too) while clerics dont - much like clerics need to carefully pick their solo exp spots while druids can solo exp just about anyway.

Hej Mik

I somehow got the bard confused with a chanter, sorry (although they can both haste, mez and "C3")


Rotg - I dont see why you cannot have 2 melee not be full health on average. Healing someone to full is pretty much a waste of good regen. Dain Ring - true, I forgot about that - definitely lowers the use of rotg.


Because if a pull goes bad, and other melee has to step in, chances are you will get overaggroed trying to heal them. With FH, you don't have to heal them right away, and maybe the warrior even gets a chance to pull the mob off of them. But again, it is rarely that I see our secondary melee get aggro, due to the fact that our warriors are very well equipped with aggro weapons, so most of the time, this isn't even an issue.


And yes - I look at well equipped people - I believe I have stated that in several posts - because thats the game I play.


Hmm:


Give me a break here - the entire table is absolute bogus and out of touch with reality - quite possibly well know by the author - to yield maximum inpact for the argumentation that druids are broken. As was clearly shown by myself - and verified by other clerics that run CH orders for raids - the level 60 "raid" average was also inflated beyond reason - yet only grudgingly was that halfways admitted when faced with hard data.

Now, since you insist on talking about druids vs clerics as MAIN healers - you cannot assume that the tank in the group is a warrior - nor have 100k+ worth of twink gear (then he doesnt even need a healer at all and the point is moot). It could be a paladin, sk, monk or ranger - with more normal gear - and you have to consider that CH does not land ON AVERAGE when the tank lies purple on the floor.


Then I would say your numbers holds as little value as the ones you argue in that post. I don't see how you making numbers ("to help your cause") on Uber people is any different from him doing it (and yes, I agree his numbers are a "little" too optimistic ;) )?

The fact of the matter is that you and I are not playing the same game as the many others, and thus your (and mine aswell) experiences in the game, will differ alot from what the "average" Druid is dealing with. My 880 heal is a little more than half a bub on our warriors, I sure hope it's more for the average Druid :)

I agree that we're better off with tanks that can heal, that is obvious. But does that mean that Druids should never be able to be healers with warriors? Imho, no.

Actually I know you and I agree on a lot of the things that should be done to Druids, but we're not Uber because we got free RotG :)

much like clerics need to carefully pick their solo exp spots while druids can solo exp just about anyway.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Woo boy, that was funny.

Anywhere? hahaha.

I'll respond after the office stops looking at me like I'm stupid...but that was some funny chit.

Quote:

For 3 - druids can actually MGB RotG - clerics have nothing similar.

About one guild in 5 seems to do this at most.

GB is an investment of 9aaxp. As you know it is something like a 77min reset. ROTG has a 15 min duration. It is (as you have said before) one of the good clickies druids get.

No one is investing in MGB just do do this spell. If they are MGB'ing ROTG it is simply because a) CoS is not needed for that raid and b) they bought the skill and want to find a use for it.

ost of our tanks specifically TELL me not to put ROTG on them during a raid. They can't waste the buff slot:

Aego, 4 or so bard songs, Brell's, Call of the Predator, Sta buff, Resist buffs, DS's (up to 3 isn't it?) on the MA, a free slot for a cleric Heal over time.

Even I find on many raids that all my buff slots are full. ROTG in that environment is a low priority. It is all about direct healing.

IF you ROTG, it is within your group, and you tend to only bother doing it if you have the BP so it doesn't cost you 600 mana for a spell that does not in any identifiable way save you the need to cast direct heals.

IF you ROTG, it is within your group, and you tend to only bother doing it if you have the BP so it doesn't cost you 600 mana for a spell that does not in any identifiable way save you the need to cast direct heals.

/agree Oak