Druids are worthless?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Grailer, Jun 18, 2019.

  1. birisu Elder

    Druids are good for letting my cleric get a drink and take a leak without having the group grind to a halt due to lack of heals. Shaman would be better for this too but there seems to not be very many of them around on mangler
    Meridian likes this.
  2. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    My Selo static had a Druid in the the group and he was definitely the highest DPS class in the group for 1-60. Granted we based our path around having a druid in the group and spent a bunch of levels in Chardok and Grimling Forest. But since druids have ports it's really easy to travel to spots they're good in when you have one in group.

    Druids can charm in Chardok, in fact Druids are the best DPS charming class in Chardok, they get a dog that hits just as hard as a Dragoon, but they get better pet haste and can start charming in Chardok at lower levels then enchanters. There is also a lot of good XP zones that have charm pets

    Classic
    SolB
    CT
    Upper Guk
    Lower Guk
    Kedge(but nobody goes here)
    Basically all the outdoor zones
    Vox and Fear for raid charming.

    Kunark
    Basically all the outdoor zones
    Chardok

    SoV
    Basically all the outdoor zones
    Kael Wolf OP
    DN
    SG

    SoL
    Sonic wolves, Owlbears and Rockhoppers are all animals so every sub 50 SoL zone people XP including PC has charm pets. And all the +50 outdoor zones do also.
    Grimling forest is secret OP XP spot for like 33-45ish and druid charm OP here

    PoP
    Storms and Tactics Strong pets
    Most of the other p1-2 zone have pets also
    Water has really strong druid pets if you come back at 70
  3. Thalliius Augur

    I made a Druid on Selos

    Wish I made a shaman instead
  4. Spayce Augur

    These "a GOOD Druid is great" comments always crack me up.

    Yes, a GOOD Druid is great, but give that good player a better class and they will be even greater.

    This discussion isn't about player quality, it's about class usefulness. Druids simply aren't that powerful, and GOOD players will bring more to the table if they select a more powerful class.
    Thalliius and Trevalon like this.
  5. Warpeace Augur

  6. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Who knows how they get those top classes? Druids were rare on agnarr and selo, and on many raids 1 druid or less was normal.
  7. Fluid Augur

    Situational. Indoors, bad. Against things that don't run i.e. undead, not needed. A group with a Cleric or Shaman already in it, on a bull.

    Main problem is if you have a high DPS group already, the MOBs drop so fast the Druid slow DOTs just don't get the time to work which makes them really inefficient. Same hold true for a Necromancer DOTs too of course.

    So outdoors in a small group of slow killers and no other healer types available is where they shine.

    Sometimes they do help in a group of magic tossers. Their bug DOTs carry a minus 100 magic resist and Flame based debuff AC a pinch and can do some resist work. Harmony<outdoors again> makes them good for splitting crowds and some of my best experiences charming mobs were with a Druid. During the last experience bonus weekend, there was even a guy who charmed Grimfeather in NK was was essentially killing the zone. Kind of funny to watch.

    More of a spot player, like a pinch hitter you only send in against left handed pitching. When you need them they're great. When you don't need them, you wonder why they are there.
  8. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    My mom says I am very handsome.
    Grogak and Ezbro like this.
  9. Trevalon Augur

    All these Druid defenders.

    So, OTHER than the 1-2 zones an expansion Druids can charm a "good" pet (and not an underconned under leveled one) name a situation where bringing a druid is worthwile.

    That's the Druid problem. It isn't that Druids cant do things it's that in virtually any "normal" eq situation (IE not a group that is tailored directly to your Druid like the one dude) there is a another class that can fill the Druid role better.

    Need Heals? Get a Cleric
    Need Support? Get a Shaman
    Need DPS? Get a Monk/Mage/Necro
    Need Charm? Get a Chanter (Or 2)

    Druid's 'Jack of all Trades' has always been there greatest strength and greatest weakness. It makes them good at the solo game but very subpar in the group game. Problem is, on TLP, and how EXP works it means soloing is almost not viable making it even worse for Druids.

    I applaud people who main Druids but the honest truth is they are not very good and only marginally useful in very specific situations only.
  10. Pikallo Augur


    I never said that other classes don't do things better and if you had an unlimited supply of every class for every situation, druids would indeed be on the lower end of the totem pole if you were hand picking the optimal group every time. However calling them "90% of situations they are trash" or "marginally useful in very specific situations" is just laughable and there is more to it than creating the perfect PUG exp group. They are good (not trash, not best) as raid healers, provide unique raid buffs and debuffs (this is not a "very specific situation"), can make appearances on a DPS parse when not needed to heal, and bring all the other traditional conveniences of a druid(sow, port/evac, buff, powerlevel ability, etc).
  11. code-zero Augur

    What is the point of this thread? So what if the OP doesn't like Druids and others agree? I freaking hate Shaman since all they do is slow and buff and most of them can't get the timing for slow right so that by the time you reach the later stages of the game all Shaman are just boxes being dragged along and wasting a spot that could have gone to a DPS class.

    Some of my most miserable groups had a self style uber shaman who spent his time rambling on in /gs about ogre frontal melee stun immunity which he always just called stun immunity punctuated by him landing a slow on a mob as I was attempting to split and me the bard being blamed for him dying. Okay I admit to being slow on the mez there and letting him eat the train he just caused but he deserved it.
  12. a_librarian Augur

    delete druids
  13. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Capitalism at play on selo and agnarr in my experience. You don't have to delete them, you just offer no incentive and they get/got rid of themselves.

    I look forward to trying a druid deeper into Selo. But early on, they just make no sense. As has been said, if you want to be a good player, whether you want to be a dps or a priest, druid simply isn't the best choice. I'm hoping they change later on.
  14. Guzzle Augur

    How to tell when someone hasn't played much further than PoP!
    code-zero likes this.
  15. Atabishii Elder

    This thread quickly became less about "are druids worthless?" and more about "are druids optimal for an exp group trying to lvl as fast as possible?" The lvl grind is like 1% of the game for anyone trying to go fast considering it only takes 1-2 days on any tlp, so why should it matter if a druid is useful in an exp group or not? News flash, MOST classes are not good in a fully optimized group trying to lvl asap.

    Fact is, druids are a VERY diverse class and that's why the people who choose to play a druid do so.

    Here's just a few I can think of off the top of my head:

    1. They are needed on raids (you may not need a ton like you would a monk, but having at least a couple is nice). Druid buffs and debuffs are a thing you know. Even though it's not showing the druid on the top of the parse, they do noticeably increase the overall DPS of a raid through their buffs/debuffs. A solo druid's buffs/debuffs on raid is adding more DPS than an individual playing a high dps class, the problem is adding more druids doesn't scale this dmg.
    2. They can make easy money porting people until PoP.
    3. They can solo very well. I remember seeing Happyfeet on phinny solo'ing just about any krono camp I would also do on my necro.
    4. They are great power levelers.
    code-zero likes this.
  16. Dawdle Augur

    Lol at these threads. First off I went pretty hard core into Mangler and with just a chanter was lvl 50 in 6 days. 2 days behind the pre-mades and guilds. When paired with the right classes and when you know what your doing they are a power house.

    Next thing, I always tell people I never bought group ports, porting people is a waste of time. There's no money in porting when you can just farm krono camps.

    Last thing is I never look for groups, I did once and it took to long and the group sucked compared to what I could do duo boxing. There are just so many badly played classes this isn't just a thread about Druids, it's really to do with PuG groups in EQ, and any Druid worth his/her weight in mana wouldn't even bother with this drama. They were built as a solo class, for people that like soloing, this is why they have all these tools. From an RPG perspective I <3 them.

    DPS wise. Well this time around given the rule changes I went at the giants in Rath. I made more krono then I have ever farmed on any TLP. After the bot army showed up I made even more do to the amount of spawns. With a chanter I had a mana pool larger then anyone one else could hold up against and for the most part I rocked that hill like a MOBA.

    [IMG]

    Lilith... 666. Play to the strength of your class. I'd fake casting making people burn after they lost one DPS race to me and then get them to waste their mana pools without wasting mine so I could steady farm everything while they med for 10/15 minutes. I'd fear mobs with a Chanter and if they didn't chase I would dot and get kill or if they did then I had all the spawns to myself while they ran after it. We countered everything, the Chanter and I, and we were very aggressive. Druids have just enough DPS when paired with a Chanter that they rack up more then 50% dmg on giants. The tricky part is the cast times. You have the longer cast time, 6 secs compared to a wizard at 4. You have to start first but you also have track and sow to compensate for that.

    I won't go on, you either love this class or you don't. I will always a main a druid and on live they are very brutal at what they do. For all the hate, I was able to plvl many toons and never have to look for groups. I ended up in the end joining like three guilds on toons I plvled before Kunark dropped, so much DKP for one class... Wait, one Druid did all that on their own with no groups? You also get around very quick and your always right where the plat/krono is at. Druids are a one man army if played right. They are my first transfer to any new server I want to try out on Live and they will always be my go to class. I think the people that hate on this class don't get it. If you can't find groups and that's a problem you aren't playing it right. FYI: I love the hate, just leave me alone I'm busy.
    Grogak and code-zero like this.
  17. Fluid Augur

    Don't get me wrong, I love Druids, it is just that I see their limitations. Even with the trade offs they are still one of the first characters I like to run on a new/tlp server. This is why, I have pretty much rejected the conventional "Druids can quad kite" as a pipe dream: Just too many resists and not enough mana. On the other hand I did OK on Mangler despite a late start tri kiting spiders in NK. I farmed enough silk to raise tailoring on several characters and still had 300+ silks left over to sell. All this while the character was still in the teens and getting experience from every kill. Paid for jewelry on an Enchanter, banded for my tanks, et cetera.
    [IMG]
    code-zero likes this.
  18. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Having played a Druid to max level on quite a few servers I can say like many non-traditional classes they have their ups and downs through the eras.

    Played a Druid to 60 on P99. Great solo leveling class and powerleveling class from Classic to Velious. They did well in groups due to how slow the DPS is in groups compared to live which allows the strength of regeneration and damage shield spells to shine, as well as snare to control fleeing mobs. On raids they are very useless outside of Kael for charming dire wolves.

    Played a Druid to 65 on Al’Kabor (EQMac). They can serve as the main healer in any group on a server like this unless the group is hiding behind a charmed pet in which case Karana’s Renewal is far too inefficient to keep a charmed pet healed. On raids they could do DPS comparable with a magician or fill into a CH rot and sustain about as long as a cleric box with a lesser mana pool could.

    Played a Druid to 65 on Agnarr, mostly the same as above but due to code changes charmed pets can tank over players which leads to them being main ranks far more frequently putting Druids at a disadvantage when expected to heal a group. With the DoT changes though Druids in POP are pretty good DPS due to free clickies from either ES vambraces, Velious wrists or PoTime Orb.

    Played a Druid to 70 on Quarm in the first guild that cleared Anguish and I was the only regularly raiding Druid in the guild. For raiding purposes I was able to keep up group tanks no problem and help heal on raids. Did all 6 MPG trials with awful gear on everyone without a cleric or shaman. So by OoW the difference between the three clerics is fairly negligible in the group game. In the raid game obviously there wasn’t much desire for people playing Druids but they did fine to keep groups alive and provide DPS in the light healing periods.

    Played a Druid on live servers from Classic-VoA, raiding casually from around PoP-SoF and raiding in a high end guild from SoD-VoA. As mentioned above, their strength in the earlier expansions is blunted by the power increase everyone else got due to how much Regen and damage shield benefit you on slower longer fights. By PoP you could heal most groups, and provide moderate DPS. Come OoW and the ancient priest heals every priest can fill every group role outside of maybe 1-grouping aug droppers in Anguish in era. Extending further, by TSS/TBS Druids solidly themselves in a raid role by healing a caster group or by filling in a tank group, doing well in both roles either keeping a group alive and then doing DPS or by keeping all the tanks alive. From SoD onward with Twincast, Black Wolf and eventually Nature’s/Fury/Improved Twincast Druids are able to make top 10 parses with proper support fairly reliably. By around HoT Druids are slightly stronger healer than clerics due to Rejuvilation, because speed of heal is far more important than potency of heal. This is short lived however because once clerics transfer into 0.5s Remedies they begin to crush Druids and by RoS clerics and shamans can both multibind 0.5 or 1.0s heals to counter fast spiking damage from modern content, meanwhile Druids can use on 0.5s, one 1.8s heal and then they have to rely on their standard 3.8s (2.2s modified) heal for the next two heals which if you have even a moderately undergreared tank can suck.

    Basically once you get past the Agnarr expansions Druids are fine Healers in the group game and fine caster group Healers or tank group Healers for the raid game. But prior to that they are sort of mediocre unless charming due to the power creep. Prior to the damage changes (IE on the Mac server), they did fine in these groups as well.

    Nice thing about playing a Druid is dumb people get surprised when you do decent DPS or keep a group alive through lots of adds or heavy AE DPS. Whereas if you just played a Monk or a Cleric you just have to sort of hit autoattack every minute or hit your CH macro every time your GINA yells at you and people think you’re great.
    yerm and code-zero like this.
  19. Tierdal Augur

    druids add a lot of versatility.
  20. uk6999 Augur

    I don't have any issues with inviting druids but they aren't a first pick. For the first few expacs until shamans and druids get rez goes cleric,tank,puller,cc,dps,dps for my optimal group. Druids are a nice backup healer with ok DPS. Honestly I would rather have a druid than wizard or necro at this point of the TLP if your talking about mangler and talking about PuGs. If that druid is on point with backup healing and putting out dps.

    Anyway if I am forming a PuG and looking at LFG. First picks [ ENC, Cleric, Tank ] Second picks [ mdps/bard, mage(mage gets promoted with CoTH as a first dps pick)] Last picks [ wizard, necro, druid, shaman ]