Druids are worthless?

Druis are fun to play, but from a min-max perspective they aren't a good class.

Early on in EQ their SoW, ports, evac and snare are useful.

But these abilities are farmed out rather quickly through SoW potions, PoK stones, Guild hall ports, Fellowship ports, Guild lobby recovery, etc.

Even their snare is farmed out through AA of other classes, finishing blows, weapons with snare, stuns, and increases in group kill speed.

What you're left with is a class that isn't really good at healing, isn't really good at damage mitagation (druid ATK debuffs are far less powerful than shaman slow or enc stun), and a class that is incredibly poor DPS.

Druids can solo somewhat, but it depends on the expansion. Some expansions have animals they can charm, but many do not. They're not the worst soloers, but they're certainly not as good as necro, mage, SK or beastlords.

Raids don't need druids.
But raids definitely need clerics, shamans, enc, bards, warriors, etc.

Druids have always been the weakest class in EQ. Why EQ developers knowingly made it the weakest class, I don't understand. It's not like they don't know the class is weak.

And it's not like druids is just weak for one expansion, druid are weak expansion after expansion.

There are many classes that have a good niche.

Bards have the best ADPS. (incredibly powerful class)
Shaman have the best slow.
Enc the best CC.
Clerics the best healing. (incredibly powerful class)
Warrior the best mitigation.
SK and Paladin the best group tank and raid offtank abilities.
Monk, Rogue, Wizard, etc...all DPS classes are incredibly competitive, some are better in sustain, others better in burst.

Druids are the best in...well....uhm...hmmm...making cute bear pets!

You could literally remove the druid class from the game and EQ would be just as playable as before. But remove clerics, bards, warriors, enc, shaman,...well, several raids are now borderline impossible.

That's not to say that I don't like to group with druids.

I love to group with druids, druids are often played by jovial and calm people. You won't see druids ragequit a group after a wipe, it will be the cleric or tank doing it.

The druid will be the one who remains in the group until everyone is ported back and has gotten free SoW.

The fact the class is a rather weak min-max class, is probably one of the reasons why it is played by more relaxing people, people you want to be around.

Dropping follow up posts won't change that you are wrong. All over the place.

Druids have charm. I suspect you are aware but just really don't appreciate this spell? Or maybe the jovial folks you love to group with aren't utilizing it? They have a decent arsenal of offensive spells and they can tack these on top of charm dps, resulting in a charming druid easily taking #1 dps in any spot charm is an option. In any expac after classic they are easily the best class for the level grind due to this coupled with their other utility.

When a druid cannot charm they are mediocre. The only time they can't charm but do shine is if they are main healing a group with minimal need for healing, as in this case they can just dump in some dps better than a cleric can.

On raids, clerics are good until they aren't. Since clerics tend to be a bottleneck you don't notice it like you do with say enchanters but the potential problem is the same, once you have too many they absolutely suck. Druids are a safer play, in a min max perfect world you don't care but in actual real life where its human beings playing (and especially not logging in and playing) this game, they are fantastic. Short on clerics? A druid is the only other class I can slot into a ch rot, and they spot heal well on stuff like inno tank swaps or rz adds or vz spikes or kiter fails, the hardest fights in time. This is true throughout expansions. If 11 clerics show up for potime, and I split it into 5 and 6 in raids, I'd rather have a druid than a 12th cleric. If 7 show up I would much prefer a cleric to a druid, but a druid could mean the difference between pass or fail there.

Soloing being weak is laughable, in part because why the hell would a druid NOT solo where there are animals and hence be top tier, and also cause you left off bards, who can ae down whole zones. I don't know how you came to those conclusions but they are terrible. Even with no charming the dot revamp alone has resorted a ton of status in small group or solo.

Unlike necros, who gradually become garbage as expansions and especially charm op-ness fades, druids start getting the tools to be either solid primary healer or very strong caster adps, or both.

Or how about we just do it simply with a long winded breakdown...

Classic: animals and high zem zones don't mix well and dry up near max level. Average level class; ahead of all melee and behind casters usually. Decent raid class due to a good mix of damage types and resist mod and can heal vs immune posky fights.

Kunark: single highest dps class for 51-60. Mediocre animal choices prior if a server were to start in kunark; they would likely be 3rd place behind nec and enc. Raids they are mediocre here.

Velious: huge animal options (necs get screwed). A potential trilogy start they are back to competing for strongest class for a level grind. Still mediocre on raids minus kael where they are silly good.

Luclin: they remain best level grind class. There are also now owners in the ideal pre-30 zones, so its not even up for debate anymore, they are #1 the whole way instead of just upon reaching chardok / kunarks' grind. They actually start shining on raids too here due to dot power versus most of the mobs and not needing to drop agro vs permarooteds with prebuilt tank threat. They are extremely strong all around in this expac.

Pop (+etc): they can charm in tactics and water, so they have it for great xp pre or post ele flagged. They have a weak pet option in fire which makes them a clear 2nd place dps in the most popular zone, way behind an enc but way ahead of othere. Overall they are exceedingly good in pop group stage. On raids they are starting to dip on most fights, but since healing is taxed on rc, they can charm vs rztw or storms named, and they are great for the hardest fights in time, they raid well where it actually matters and are poor where it doesn't. If you zerg time with 50+ they drop to weak class, but if you zerg who cares. Ldon they are hit or miss.

God: highest dps at the best xp camp, and very very strong anywhere you are working on bic. Hit or miss for raids again but its like I said above, if you value flexibility they are cool on the hard ones.

Stopping to eat lunch, my point is beaten to death. Druids are never bad, and often top tier or even #1 group class. Their raid flexibility is just so awesome in practice; arguing some min max perfect world always ideal cleric turnout never too many or few is a fantasy.

Oh look! we found the Druid who has had to justify why hes good so many times he can write a novel about it cause he cant find guilds/groups cause everyone knows Druids are crap.

Its not that Druids, in certain situations, can't be good. Sure, if you go to Chardok with a 52+ druid and the druid does nothing but nuke and charm - Fine, Ill give you in that situation Druids can be good.

But it still doesn't mean I, or most, would take that Druid. Id RATHER take a Chanter. Chanter gives me more options to Pet (don't have to find a dog and don't forget get dogs are crap pets cause they dot). They have Clarity which is instantly better than anything a druid has for keeping the group going. They have AE stun for keeping super hasted pets under control. They have Mez for just normal play. They have Haste for everyone. They have Disempower for harder mobs. They have tash for keeping those pets charmed and not breaking as much.

So why take a druid over a Chanter? You still need a chanter and frankly I don't want to double charm most of the time. Wondrous Rapidity on a pet can down a group real fast if you get a double break on that if your charming 2.

So their charm is kinda useless cause I can find another class that can do it better (More options and more tools to deal with breaks).

A cleric is gonna come regardless, so the druid is at best backup on heals, but then again I can just get a shaman who brings and awesome slow, just as good backup heals, has better mana regen/management, and their dots are dang near the level of a charmed pet without ANY risk of a pet breaking and killing the druid/group.

Their nukes are mediocre at best and at this point any other pure dps class is going to outdmg them over time, even a Wizard.

Sorry, there just isn't any room for a Druid when better classes are always available.

And lets not get started on Raiding. Sure having 2-3 Druids is good for Seasons and Skin on the casters, but other than that Druids are mostly filler. Ill take 10 Shamans before I take a 4th druid - at least Shaman buffs are more useful and DoTs are insanely powerful with again, no risk from pet breaks.

No, they can break, mez, blur and the pet will regen to full in about 30 seconds. It's a pain but it's not that frequently, generally.

That would be a nightmare, Does your pet not tank for you group? My cleric complete heals the charm pet at least every 3-4 mobs or so, especially at Kennels/Juggs. I couldnt imagine dropping charm every few mobs to let the charm pet regen to full - you might as well just not have em at that point.

You don't double charm? You have enc haste on a charm pet when a druid (or nec) could have used their haste? No wonder you adore shaman, your dps is hot garbage so you need them to slow and dot for those unnecessarily long fights. Meanwhile you seem to skip over that if a shaman can get mileage out of a dot length fight, a druid has revamped dots that do work too.

If you want to only single charm, at LEAST have the druid haste it before the enc takes over. Or you could stop grouping with awful players and tell the druid to stand near the enc so he can ae stun both pets at once on a double break, and tell your cleric which apparently is always available for healing instead of a druid that he needs to cast his heal spells on the charmer right away when the pet breaks, not wait for the pet to reach them and start doing damage to start healing. After this, you can now tell the shaman to stop wasting mana on slowing because the fights are so short and with a cleric and druid you can just heal it back; let the druid's ds do its work and just poison dot or nuke...


I play a cleric. What do you play?

Lol, the BA of EQ right here everyone with his uber Druid

I 100% guarantee that hes never died to a double charm break, never had a bad pull, and CERTAINLY never had his Druid die EVER. 100% guaranteed!

You know what, I recall back in Velious (the original not TLP) me and my druid buddy laying waste with charmed pets and me with bard charm and we never died. Between mezz, snare and root we just didn't have a problem and if my charm broke early his pet would handle it till we could get things back under control again. Mezz up a giant and a wolf or a walrus and just go to town, fun times!

We of course used similar tactics in other zones and later expansions but double charmed pets were great, I liked to give my pet a pair of gnoll hide lariats

Wut? The only thing better than double charm is triple charm. We had a druid+necro+chanter in the library for 4 hours and mobs were dying faster than I can could cast one nuke.

Druids don't charm in velks, druids charm in lguk is weak and druids aren't charming in Ssra or just about any raid. This is where modern eq tlp revolves around. So these niche scenarios aren't going to work for average Joe druid.

As far as raids they still don't have a group heal, no rez and they aren't charming unless maybe you're in velious raiding aow. And if you're short on clerics they're going to ask the 2 druids on the radius to heal anyways... while wishing you just rolled clerics to begin with.

It really doesn't matter, Druids are great at what they do. They are even better paired with a Chanter. Chanters are really the best pullers in the game and so much depends on the puller. I never let anyone else pull, did once and it wasn't good.

If you want to go for DPS with a Druid it works well to get everything all lined up on a good pull. Pet tank first mob, mez the next 4, 5, maybe 8. Whatever you pulled. Spread them out and then Tash now back to Druid, snare, root and dot the mobs ahead of the group and with good Dps you shouldn't have to worry about healing much, usually have a wizard there somewhere stunning. Don't even worry about the mobs the tank is on if you have one. There's a 1000 ways to play this game but if you expect to always want to fall back on the same thing then I understand how Druids aren't fitting in with your prefect group picture. This was just one example.

Come <Progression: Selo: UF Unlocks 4/1/2020> Selo's will probably die because it's about the same time the next TLP should launch but that's when Druids get group Spirit of the Black Wolf. From UF on up to current the whole game changes and I'm not sure how you would be raiding current content without this. I don't even think most the TLP guilds could even handle Live content with their perspective on classes and the game. Druids can and will be near the top of parser in some of the best guilds beating end game content and it's all about ADPS.

Yeah the way their toolkit vastly less powerful as the game progresses is part of what I dislike about the class. Snare, root, regen, DS, charm and ports are essentially the core of the class and have fantastic utility while leveling up to 60 or so. Then every mob starts summoning so snare and root fall off a cliff, mobs hitting so hard and so fast that regen and DS is not even worth a buff slot, charm is good but situational then gets nerfed into a weak and situational tool which is just frustrating.

The class is worse at everything it does than any given other class. The utility they were given to make up for it is rendered irrelevant by the way gameplay mechanics develop over time. They eventually get caster ADPS to give raids a reason to bring more than 1 to a raid

In conclusion, druids are cancelled. delete the class

Really in most expansions, groups really are overkill for what they're doing. So and so does more dps or less dps than blah. It's a versatile class and can do a lot of things, you see this junk on live too a group wanted a healer for Howling stones (ROS) but they wouldn't take a paladin who was for sure able to keep the group healed. People think they need these extraordinary compositions for their groups when they could just get going if they took what they needed.

Druids are not a bad class, it's a great class for someone who sometimes wants to dps and sometimes wants to heal they have a couple rough expansions.

Probably because they know if they ragequit they will be waiting another 4 hours to find a new group.

Also how many guys that talk their wives/girlfriends into playing nudge them toward playing Druids, I've encountered so many husband and wife teams where the husband plays a melee type, tank, monk etc while the wife plays a Druid.

Yeah they are often nice people to play with but a bit lacking in the skill department.

Druids are a jack of all trades, master of none class. They can dd, dot, cc..with snare and root, kite extra pulls away from group or root rot them if no chanter....some of the best healers i know have been druids (just because the are good at their class) Snare also over-rides sow...sure necromancers and sk have the darkness lines but they do not override sow. So Druids though can be replaced by any one class for what they can do, but if a group lacks something the druid can easily fill that role.....that was their purpose.

Now that being said, the group mentality on this game has gone to pot when needing classes. Everyone wants Enchanter because of top dps, cleric for CH on the charm, mages are a easy dps with nice pets, and any of the tanks can easily find a group. This is the mentality.......and its unfortunate.....in the end this is a social game.....any of you winning medals for your elite-ness??...Make a goal....to meet new people.... to pick up that druid or that lonely rogue in the zone lfg.......and invite them to your group and maybe your discord and you will have met a friend to play with...and in the end you will be surprised what they might bring to the table. So quit being neck beards...lighten up and have some fun

I hate to break it to you, but you have the wrong person. I'm the uber Druid whose never been in a group wipe on Selo even with double pet charm break because I play with competent people, and I can stun, root, kite, or evac.

Yerm is the pro Cleric that actually knows what he's talking about and shut down your argument in long and short form. But aparently your reading conprehension is on the same level of your game play so you have to rely on incorrect personal attacks.

Did you even read my posts?