Something's Gotta Give

Hello Devs,

First off lemme say I've never posted here before but thank you for 20 years of an amazing game.

I have a major complaint, that is shared with every single other person of this class..... Druid.
It is my favorite class of all time. However, on TLE servers, there is so much druid hate the class is unplayable and you are relegated to soloing. Do you know how that feels to never get groups? Do you have any idea how many times I sat at the entrance to Chardok with a charmed dog soloing because literally NOBODY wanted a druid in a group?

You've shown with the dot revamp that you can fix stuff and it effects TLEs. Pretty Pretty Please with cherries on top do SOMETHING to make the druid wanted in groups. Up our nukes. Hell, let us be ghetto chanters and give us a mana regen buff, mez, and slow. I DONT CARE WHAT IT IS, I just want to be able to play my favorite class in my favorite game and not have to solo.

Thank you for listening and I hope something happens, but I'm not holding my breath.

Steve

Simple fix: make your own groups. You chose the class knowing full well how it plays. They don't need to change anything. Druids have already have an abundance of abilities. Ports, Sow, Buffs (Hp, Regen, Mana regen, resists), nukes, heals, charms. They simply aren't the best at anything.

That would be called a bard. Although you already get a mana regen buff once Velious comes out.

Don't like it? Play your character better so people desire you, or pick a different class. A well played druid is desired. A useless sitting tool isn't.

Druids are already fine for healing groups.
You're the 3rd strongest at both nukes and DoTs already.

But yeah, generally unless you area tank/cleric/enc you will have to form your own group, because you're not going to be snagged over a cleric for healing, or a mage for DPS.

Druids are already very strong. The problem is more of the people who play the class, much like bard. You tend to get a lot of people who pick Druid or Bard, because it's looked at as an easy class where you can get away with being non-active for long periods of time, resulting in them playing it to maybe 10% of its potential. When in reality, if you ever group with a Druid or Bard who knows how to play the class and wants to be active, they are two of the best group classes in the game. On top of that, if you've ever known a Druid who knows how to play the class, they are one of the best solo classes in the game, only slightly beaten out by Necros and that entirely depends on the zone.

My static for both Classic and Kunark had a Druid in it, and we were the 2nd group to max lvl in both expansions.

I guess I'm lucky because the only druid hate I've experienced is on message boards and not in the game and even then it's more tongue in cheek "shaddup ya dumb drood, no body wants you here (or anywhere!)."

Join a guild and actively form your own groups. Hanging out with /lfg on and waiting for a group to form for you does not work very well for some classes. Well played druids are extremely powerful, and they do not need powered up.

A Druid in Chardok is very desirable. Charm = DPS, and with your ability to heal, nuke, and DoT as well as provide excellent melee DPS via the charm pet, I'd think it wouldn't be too hard to get a group. Are you guilded, or just pugging? I tend to not PUG, so I don't really know what the pick-up group landscape looks like anymore. I'd bet a lot of people are in guild groups and aren't looking for people LFG. There's usually people at the zone in LFG when I'm in there, maybe send some tells and get a group started?

My box crew on Coirnav is an SK, Bard, and Druid. I know for a fact that they're competent healers.

They are competent healers, and they are an amazing class. Never once did I say they aren't. There's a reason it's my favorite class. Next, I am specifically talking about on TLE servers, I am not talking about live servers. I haven't played live in over a decade.

Also, it is not a matter of play style, I am not someone who sits on their . I am talking about when people are advertising a group, and I request to join, and am told no because they don't want a druid, they want a dps class. It literally happened just last night; had a cleric friend in a group and a spot opens up. She recommends me, and they literally say "no, we want real dps". She argues that I can dps just fine, and they shut her out and invite a mage.

The problem isn't with how people play. The problem is our dps cannot compete with any other class' dps. People will take a cleric healer over a druid any day of the week just because of rez. It doesn't matter that both druids and shamans can solo heal any non-raid content, they don't care.

So here's an idea to fix it, how about not making druids/shamans wait until Omens of War to get their rez? That alone would make druids desired for healing roles again on TLE servers.

i agree with this post 100%. ive been playing for 20 years and the thing that's really holding druids back in groups is they can't rez. can you please give druids rez and give clerics ports and evac? i think these changes make a lot of sense and everybody would welcome them.

Play a preferred DPS class then?

Aren't TLE servers an EQ2 thang?

Also, don't presume to speak for the entire TLP druid community.

On agnarr I played car wiz brd mage druid enc to max level and nothing came close to the lack of group invites the druid got. It wasn't even close.

Not only do they not get groups as easy but its clear WHY once you actually play them. I've brought this up maybe years ago at this point. But they simply aren't competitive in modern top, they are designed for longer more old school eq.... and we all know today is fast fast fast.

The easiest start is just change that God awful heal over time regen barely they get... then maybe a good epic. Isn't that fot not even scaled to modern dpt damage? Its justa totally overlooked class.

Great Port boxes though!

Perceived issue: Druids have a bad reputation, therefor they rarely get groups and the groups they do get suck.

Real issue: Depending on PUGs for groups means hours of LFG for anyone but enchanters, and the groups you do get will suck because only the worst of the worst depend on PUG (which is why they need enchanters to carry them)

This is not a class problem. This is a problem with how you're choosing to play.

In my experience, and playing many classes as myself, druids absolutely get passed over in a very real way.

Roll a cleric and see the invites fly in... when it comes to healing people want clerics. Roll a non rogue dps and compare... druids are passed over here and for good reason.

To make druids even competitive when you get an invite you need to be a good player, and that alone knocks out a majority of players.

The PUG scene on Aradune is rough. It gets worse every TLP as people group up with the friends they made on previous TLPs and worse every expansion as folks do the same thing. I occasionally throw up LFG as I solo or work on quests while waiting for guildies to log on and I have gone for hours without a tell, so long that I have actually forgotten I had LFG up. And I'm a necro, I can ghetto CC and mana regen. I don't bother putting a group together because I don't care enough, I'll get exp when the guild logs on in the evening. I suggest that if you do care enough you put your own group together or make more friends in your guild.

Absolutely this has been a problem for over a decade. Anyone who denies it is a problem needs to take blinders off. Go ahead and google "EQ1 should I play a druid" and see what comes up. Hell, just look at the main druid guide on P99.

This just isn't true. I have a group of friends I play with and things are fine. Guess what? We all have real lives and cannot always be online together. If guild groups are full, the next step goes to pugging. I've had some fantastic pug groups and made awesome friends that way. There is nothing wrong with pugging at all. It's when elitist min/maxers refuse to invite you because they think you're a crappy class when there's an issue. Guess what, this game is 20 years old. There's no need to min/max, you literally aren't doing anything that hasn't been done millions of times over the last 20 years.

You've just answered your own question. The Classic game is over 20 years old, and it isn't going to be re-balanced now. The devs have a hard enough time dealing with balancing issues in the Live game, and the Live playerbase outnumbers the TLP playerbase by something like 10:1. Because it is a common codebase, anything that could possibly be done to re-balance druids on a TLP would affect the Live game, and for that reason alone it won't be done. Druids do just fine in the Live game; in fact, they do just fine on TLPs once you get to Luclin or PoP. In the meantime, you want to find in-game friends who will play together no matter who rolled what class. Any group of six reasonably competent players can handle any group content in this game regardless of what the makeup is. If you're already in a guild and they're shunning you, something else is wrong. If you're not in a guild yet... well why not? If it's a work schedule thing, welcome to all of online gaming in the 21st century, it's not specifically an EQ issue. To enjoy playing on a TLP, you need to either (a) have friends with matching schedules to play with, (b) box a group on your own, or (c) be content with solo'ing as much content as you can. The option that doesn't exist is to demand the game be re-designed to suit your personal tastes.

4 druids, 3 with charm pets would absolutely wreck chardok, problem solved, more druids

Most of the top groups to 60 had a druid.

Atabishi had Kubat.
I had Balance.

Theres multiple reasons we chose druid for a group spot. Root is a much better CC mechanic in Chardok than mez, especially when you can't mez level 56 mobs early.

Druids can charm, dps, heal, evac and much more.

Sitting LFG isnt actually a good measurment of you axticely looking for a group.

Maybe its the garbage player not the garbage class.

Probably the #1 issue holding back druids from getting groups is a lack of a rez, everybody knows druids can heal decently, but they also know if something goes wrong they will be begging Clerics for rezzes, with the established expectation that a Cleric in another group doing rezzes (without clicky) requires a donation. And things often go wrong with PUGs.