I would say this probably has to do with the fact that shaman are superior DPS as well (not burst). The shaman can slow, pop a few dots, canni dance, torpor himself, and be full mana again. Saying druids are not better healers was probably not the best wording, I should of said druids are never better single healers than shaman, but if you read further into that paragraph you will see it is because of slow. Druid and shaman healing is about equal, but Druids get nothing to compete with slow, if there is ALREADY a shaman in the group slowing the druid suddenly becomes on par again because there is a source of slow for them. At that point the druid is better off healing and the shaman is better off as a DPS due to the rediculous damage and mana efficiency of their dots.
Are the druid atk debuffs meant to act like shaman slow as far as damage reduction goes? How do they compare in effectiveness?
Until SoF when SoE decided they wanted all healers to be somewhat equal, they dont even come close. They help, but they dont reduce the mobs dps output like slow does. When tanking did I notice a difference ? sometimes. Did I notice a difference with slow? Always
Do damage shields cast by a druid onto a tank work as aggro for the tank? Such as if i cast thorns on a warrior that do 20 damage a thorn, is that added aggro for the warrior?
Don't believe so. DS damage doesn't get attributed to anyone, can't imagine there's any agro attributed. Edit: A caveat might be cleric DS. I seem to remember cleric DS being attributed to the person being attacked when I used one for some PLing, never really played a cleric outside of that though outside of healbox.
DS shields do stack pretty well with a lot of self buffs and clicky effects in the game, don't sell druids short, a lot of their debuffs go a long way. They work nicer when mobs aren't slowed too the DS shields I mean, more hits in the more damage they take fairly obvious but sometimes its over looked. What they lack in healing power, with decent enough gear, they can make up with their dps in between heals. Also keep in mind from 1 to 50 minus the clerics, shamans and druids get the same heal spells at the same levels.
I am leaning toward a druid or wizard main, due to time constraints. Sure the druid cannot slow but there are other forms of cc. Line of sight, root, charm, ect. Yes slowing an enemy makes many things easier, but sometimes slow can be a bad crutch. What happens on a string of resists, or an immune enemy? Not saying no slow = better, but i think its good training for you and the tank. Course maybe i just want to be a tree.
Haha, there a lot of late game mobs that end up only being partial slow-able and its a negligible difference when it does land, at least from my experience as tank on 1.0 and even as my monk at 85+ content and I relay on a cleric (j5) merc to try and keep up. It's usually poison buffs (rogue tradable potions) and my DS clickies.
from someone who played a cleric in classic slows were not all that important in the 1-50 group game. I never had trouble keeping up with healing no matter if the mob was slowed or not. however it became very important from Kunark on .. that was when the holy trinity of cleric / enchanter / warrior started and slows became needed in almost every situation. in certain areas I would have to spam heal until slow landed ..especially if it was not a warrior tanking.
Comparing healers after level 75 doesnt work because healers got a semi revamp around SoF that made them all equalish... Druids got stronger attack debuffs, shaman still had slow, and clerics had raw healing.
When all is said and done, this statement above all is so true. Playing on Fippy at launch I was surprised when I realized that slow wasn't 100% necessary in groups in Classic. Kunark is when stuff starts to hit HARD and you needed a plate tank, shaman/enc, and a cleric healer to make groups viable (it was tough for a shaman to keep up with heals and slow in this era, and druid still didn't have its Velious/Luclin heals). It's a shame some of the revamps didn't come a little sooner TBH, because this is what made finding groups so tough, and why every cleric and slower were treated like gold.
One time in SolB I was in the throne room group and by chance of the lists we ended up with a group entirely made up of dark elves and wood elf females . . for a joke we stripped all our armour and cavorted about in our undies .. shouting to the whole zone to come see the "show" .. I think within half a hour there were close to 100 people packed in the zone .. . oh and we kept on pulling and killing even the named and i barely noticed if i had to heal more ... which showed me the insignicance classic armour has on the under 50 game
I remember healing being everyone's responsibility, which made the game pretty awesome. The big, slow heals and low spike damage of mobs allowed for rangers, paladins, and necros to assist with spot healing. Now, EQ is kind of like life - too fast and specialized; making the jack-of-all-trades undesirable.
This is true too, and why no MMOs have really come close to Classic era EQ: so unique, special, and rewarding. Every class had its own flavor but could jump into certain roles when needed. The way combat was balanced, a ranger could keep a necro healthy while he transferred hp to the tank to help augment the healing of the cleric who is low on mana, while the druide is busy rooting adds because the enchanter pulled aggro. Each class was so distinct and brought a different type of utility to the group. Nowadays combat is insanely fast paced and you have 4 archetypes and classes are just carbon copies of eachother with a different wrapping.
No, nor do the cleric 'mark/blood' lines. You're looking for something with a defensive proc, like the Magician 'Burning Veil' or Clerics 'Shining' line. With regard to slows in Kunark, inspect buffs has shown us that many of these mobs are hasted by wandering NPC's. Slowing them 75% can cut their damage output by a factor of ~7.
They don't. But I used at one time "Scorpions Agony XII" it was a hate proc potion. So not really a poison in the description it always mentioned poison so I just started calling it as such. And "Spiders Bite" was another good one for dps, it always hit like a truck. On 1.0 TLP we got these prematurely it was great for tanking or levelling.
